Rising Indian shuttler Lakshya Sen celebrated his rise to the junior World No 1 ranking by upsetting the top seed HS Prannoy in the fourth round of the 81st Senior National Badminton Championships at the Patili Putra Sports Complex in Patna on Sunday. The 14th seed, aged only 15, held his nerves to secure a hard-fought 15-21, 21-18, 21-19 win in 1 hour 5 minutes to enter the quarter-finals.
He will now face the seventh seed Daniel Farid S for a place in the semi-finals.
The second-seeded Sameer Verma, in contrast, had a smooth sailing. The defending champion thrashed 16th seed Hemanth MG, 21-9, 21-6 in just 22 minutes.
Sameer’s elder brother, Sourabh too entered the quarter-finals courtesy of a 21-19, 21-15 win over Kaushal Dharmamer. He will now face another rising star – the former junior World No. 1 Siril Verma, who beat the 10th seed Bodhit Joshi, 21-19, 21-14.
In women’s singles, the top seed Tanvi Lad did not face much trouble in dismissing 10th seeded Shruti Mundada, 21-15, 21-15. She will now take on the ninth-seeded Reshma Karthik, who toppled the sixth-seeded Anura Prabhudesai, 21-10, 21-15 for a place in the last-eight.
The second-seeded Rituparna Das had a very comfortable outing during her fourth round match. The 20-year-old pummelled Ananya Goel, 21-8, 21-7 to set up a meeting with the 13th seed Rasika Raje. The latter caused a big upset as she prevailed over the fifth seed Neha Pandit, 21-16, 28-26 to book her berth in the quarters.
Women’s doubles top seeds ousted
In women’s doubles, the top seeds Sanjana Santosh and Arathi Sara Sunil departed after a tough 21-12, 19-21, 15-21 loss to the unseeded duo of Mahima Agarwal and K Maneesha.
In mixed doubles, there was no stopping the top seeded pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and K Maneesha. The pair stormed into the quarter-finals with a 21-10, 21-9 victory over the wildcard combine of Vighnesh Devlekar and Poorvisha S Ram.
There was a double delight for Satwik as he made it to the quarters of the men’s doubles too. The third-seeded duo of Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty beat Pawan Malik and Manish Gupta, 21-8, 21-14 to set up a clash with Rupesh Kumar KT and Sanave Thomas.
The top seeds Tarun Kona and Alwin Francis too entered the last-eight with a breezy 21-13, 21-12 win over Kapil Chaudhry and Chandrabhushan Tripathi.
