Top seed Anupama Upadhyaya, fifth seed Unnati Hooda and Rakshita Sree Santosh Ramraj progressed to the women’s singles round of 32 at the BWF World Junior Championships in Santander on Tuesday.
Up against Singapore’s Yi Ting Elsa Lai, Upadhyaya lost a close first game 21-19 but bounced back superbly to win the subsequent games 21-10, 21-9 to win the match.
Hooda also secured her place in the next round with a three-game win beating Sri Lanka’s Ranithma Liyanage 21-11, 19-21, 21-7.
Ramraj earlier beat 16th seed Lucie Krulova 21-16, 21-12 to move into the round of 32.
In the men’s singles, Bharat Raghav and Ayush Shetty bowed out in the second round. While Raghav lost in straight games to top seed Alex Lanier, Shetty lost a see-saw battle 20-22, 21-15, 21-18 to Singapore’s Lau Jun Hui Marcus.
The mixed doubles pair of Samarveer and Radhika Sharma came back from a game down to beat 10th seeds Jonathan Dresp and Anna Majikovskiy 18-21, 21-19, 21-17.
In the men’s singles Round of 64 encounter, fourth seed S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian defeated Singapore’s Remus NG 21-13, 21-8 to set up a clash against Spain’s Basilio Borto on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the women’s doubles pairs of Shreya Balaji-Srinidhi Narayanan also registered a straight games victory and defeated Germany’s Amber Boonen-Tammi Van Wonterghem 21-13, 21-8.
However, Isharani Baruah-Devika Sihag were defeated by the Thai duo of Prinda Pattanawarithhipan and Napha Samart 21-15, 13-21, 21-18. The men’s doubles pairs of Nicholas Raj-Tushar Suveer suffered a straight-games defeat against Japan’s Seiya Inoue and Haruki Kawabe 21-11, 21-13 in the Round of 64 encounter.
Meanwhile, Arsh Mohammad Abhinav Thakur also suffered a 12-21, 21-14, 22-20 defeat despite a late fightback against Thailand’s Smuch Buasaard-Phooriwat Wattanaphonpaisarn.
On Wednesday, round of 32 action will take place in Spain. In women’s singles, where India’s best chances of a medal lie, there are some tough tests coming up.
Upadhyaya will face a tough ask against China’s Zhang Xin Ran. With the rankings tend to be a bit misleading at this level, the Indian might well start this as an underdog as the Chinese shuttler was in fine form in the mixed team event, defeating Unnati Hooda in straight games. She did however lose to her Indonesian opponent, but has bounced back to breeze through the two rounds here. Hooda will take on Italy’s Gianna Stiglich while Rakshita faces Korea’s Na Kyung Park.
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