Lakshya Sen got the better of Siril Verma in a battle of two former junior world No 1s at the All India Senior Ranking Tournament in Bengaluru on Friday. This is one of the two tournaments that serves as a selection trial for the Asian Games.
Sen and Verma battled it out for over an hour before the former came out a 21-15, 17-21, 21-13 winner in the third round. Earlier, Sen had beaten ninth seed Rohit Yadav 23-21, 21-9, while Verma had defeated Siddharth Pratap Singh 21-11, 21-16.
Sen, who represented the country at the Thomas Cup recently, will take on an India international in Sourabh Verma in the quarter-finals. Making his way back on the circuit after injury, Verma battled past fellow qualifier M Kanishq in the third round 21-16, 23-25, 21-15. Shreyansh Jaiswal and Maisnam Meiraba are the other qualifiers who have made it to the last eight.
Top seed Pratul Joshi is also through to the quarters after a tight third-round match against Rahul Yadav, which he won 20-22, 21-16, 21-12.
In the women’s singles draw, Gayatri Gopichand, the 15-year-old daughter of former All England champion and current India national coach P Gopichand, is through to the quarters after defeating two seeded players.
Qualifier Gayatri was a game down against both Shruti Mundada and Vrushali G, seeded seventh and 15th, before winning both matches. She edged out Mundada 19-21, 21-17, 27-25, before beating Vrushali 17-21, 21-14, 21-9. Gayatri was on court for three hours across both matches. She will take on 13th seed Ashmita Chaliha in the quarters.
Third seed Shreyanshi Pardeshi was knocked out by Shikha Gautam 21-16, 21-12 in the third round. Fifth seed Aakarshi Kashyap is through to the quarter-finals after defeating Tanisha Crasto and Malvika Bansod in straight games. Second seed Sai Uttejitha Rao is also through to the last eight, after beating Divyanshi Sharma and Unnati Bisht, the latter in three games.
There were no major upsets in the doubles, except for men’s doubles second seeds Utkarsh Arora and Vighnesh Devlekar being defeated by Tarun K and Saurabh Sharma 12-21, 21-10, 21-18.
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