Harpal Singh Bedi
On a day of mixed fortunes for the Indian shuttlers , top seed Unnati Hooda stormed into the U-17 girls quarter-finals while her two other compatriots crashed out of the Badminton Asia Junior Championships in Nonthaburi, Thailand on Thursday.
The Odisha Open champion thrashed Thailand’s Nutchavee Sittiteeranan 21-11, 21-19 in the Last-16 match. The top seed clinched the first set easily but was pushed hard in the second. The Indian, however, kept her calm even when the game was poised at 18-18 and displayed her brilliance to wrap up the set as well as match comfortably in her favour eventually.
She will now take on South Korea’s Min Ji Kim in the quarter-finals tomorrow. In the other U-17 pre-quarterfinals, Anmol Kharb and Dhruv Negi suffered defeats.
Anmol put up a strong challenge against Malaysia’s Dania Sofea in the women’s singles before going down fighting 17-21, 21-19, 13-21 in a close game. In the boy’s section Fifth seeded Dhruv lost to Indonesia’s Ryan Widyanto 16-21, 13-21.
Besides Unnati, India’s two doubles pairs also emerged victorious to progress into the U-17 pre-quarterfinals.
Boys’ doubles pair of Arsh Mohammad and Sanskar Saraswat took just 20 minutes to outclass their Indonesian rivals , Daniswara Mahrizal and Andre Mukuan, 21-12, 21-10 .
Whereas, mixed doubles combination of Arul Ravi and Srinidhi Narayanan notched up an easy 21-14, 21-17 win over Thailand’s Rachprung Akat and Hathaithip Mijad.
Women’s doubles pairs of Navya Kanderi and Rakshitha Ramraj, and Vennala Kalagotla and Shriyanshi Valishetty suffered defeats in the round-of-32 along with boy’s doubles pair of Divyam Arora and Mayank Arora.
Meanwhile, the pair of Tanvi Andluri and Durga Kandrapu entered the Last-16 in the U-15 girls doubles category after beating Sunisa Lekjula and Pimchanok Sutthiviriyakul of Thailand by 21-18, 22-20.
Boy’s doubles duo of Bjorn Jaison and Aathish Sreenivas PV also registered their second win of the tournament as they went past Thai pair of Thanik Foo and Woranan Saengvanich with 18-21, 21-10, 21-16 scores in the U-15 round-of-32 match.
Mixed doubles pair of Ishaan Negi and Siddhi Rawat lost their Last-32 match.