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Teenage Indian girls Kriti Bharadwaj and Tanya Hemanth qualified for the main draw in the Victor Denmark Masters International Challenge Badminton tournament at Esbjerg.
Both Kriti and Tanya are 17-year-old shuttlers but have made it to the main draw in the senior international tournament.
In the third and final qualifying round, Tanya Hemanth thumped Sweden’s Edith Urell 21-17, 21-18 to book her berth in the main draw on Thursday. The Karnataka teenager will now face eighth seed Léonice Huet of France in the first round on Friday.
Kriti Bharadwaj upset fourth seed Ann-Kathrin Spori of Germany 21-15, 15-21, 21-12 in the final qualifying round.
Debutant Kriti to face top seed Line Christophersen of Denmark
Debutant Kriti will run into the top seed and World No. 27 Line Christophersen of Denmark in the main draw. Since it is the first senior tournament for Kriti, the promising shuttler has no world ranking.
However, mixed doubles pair Shivam Sharma and Poorvisha S Ram were beaten in the last qualifying round and failed to claim a spot in the main draw. Andreas Sondergaard and Julie Finne-Ipsen of Denmark downed Shivam Sharma and Poorvisha S Ram 21-11, 21-17.
In the men’s singles, three Indian shuttlers, Kevin Arokia Walter, Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian and Under-19 boys singles World No. 2 Varun Kapur failed to qualify for the main draw.
The main draw matches will commence later in the day with several Indians in the fray. New pair Dhruv Rawat and Ashwini Ponnappa will be seen in action in the mixed doubles. Second seed in the women’s doubles Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy will launch their campaign on Friday.
Indians in action on Friday
Women’s singles
Aakarshi Kashyap vs Tereza Švabikova (Czech Republic)
Tanya Hemanth vs 8-Léonice Huet (France)
K Sri Krishna Priya vs 7-Yaelle Hoyaux (France)
Kriti Bharadwaj vs 1-Line Christophersen (Denmark)
Men’s singles
1-Lakshya Sen vs Aram Mahmoud (Netherlands)
6-Ajay Jayaram vs Lucas Claerbout (France)
4-Subhankar Dey vs Ditlev Jaeger Holm (Denmark)
Siddharth Pratap Singh vs Joran Kweekel (Netherlands)
Kiran George vs Niluka Karunaratne (Sri Lanka)
Alap Mishra vs Ade Resky Dwicahyo (Azerbaijan)
Chirag Sen vs 2-Thomas Rouxel (France).
Men’s doubles
Tarun Kona-Shivam Sharma vs Joshua Magee-Paul Reynolds (Ireland)
Krishna Prasad Garaga-Vishnu Vardhan Goud vs William Kryger Boe-Christian Faust Kjaer (Denmark)
Utkarsh Arora-Saurabh Sharma vs Mads Pieler Kolding-Frederik Sogaard (Denmark).
