Harpal Singh Bedi
Top U-17 shuttler Pranav Rao Gandham and U-15 No. 1 player Tanmoy Bikash Boruah opened their campaign with facile wins at the Asia Junior Badminton Championships at Surabaya, Indonesia on Wednesday. .
12th seed Telengana boy Gandham, outlasted Thailand’s Pataralapas Chaihoudcharoen 21-17, 21-17 to storm into the second round. 13th seed Ayush Raj Gupta of Uttar Pradesh and unseeded Shubham Patel of Rajasthan joined him in the same round with impressive showings
Gupta defeated Singapore’s Yao Chee Torance Jng, 21-13, 21-18 and Patel warded off a stiff challenge from Taipei’s Liu Chia-Feng to win 24-22, 21-14.
top seed in U-17 ,Maharashtra’s Varun Kapur, got a bye into the second round.
In women’s singles U-17 section, 8th seed Meghana Reddy,got the bye while . Assam’s Ishani Baruah overcame Indonesia’s Mutiara Ayu Puspitasari 21-13, 21-19 t
In U-15, Tanmoy Bikash Boruah hardly broke a sweat in entering the third round. After a first-round bye, the Assam shuttler needed only 20 minutes to get past Jordan’s Ismail Omar 21-5, 21-9. West Bengal’s Ankit Mondal also breezed into the next round with a 21-19, 21-8 win against Japan’s Daichi Miura.
Raghav and Lokesh Reddy also made it to the third round but Lakshay Sharma bowed out. Haryana’s Gagan went down 21-16, 13-21, 10-21 against Thailand’s fourth seed Wongsup Wongsup.
In the girls section, Maharashtra’s Tara Shah notched up 21-23, 21-13, 21-8 win against Indonesia’s Bernadine Anindiya Wardana. Maharashtra’s Manya Avlani and Haryana’s Anupama Upadhyay also made a winning start.