Bengaluru, Dec 22 Lower-ranked players ruled the roost as all the top six women’s singles seeds, including defending champion Anmol Kharb, were knocked out of the Senior National Badminton Championships here at the pre-quarterfinal stage on Sunday.
Anmol, who recently reached the finals of the Guwahati Masters Super 100 tournament, was defeated by 12th seed Shriyanshi Valishetty 21-12, 21-15, while 16th seed Tasnim Mir packed off top seed Aakarshi Kashyap 21-19, 21-17.
On the other courts, 15th seed Shreya Lele continued her impressive run in Bengaluru as she came from a game down to beat former champion and second seed Anupama Upadhaya 13-21, 21-18, 21-14. The 13th seed Devika Sihag kept her composure to beat fourth seed and last edition runner-up Tanvi Sharma 21-19, 21-18 while unseeded Rujula Ramu accounted for fifth seed Mansi Singh 21-19, 20-22, 21-13 and 14th seed Sakshi Phogat ended the campaign of sixth seed Adita Rao 21-18, 21-19.
Seventh seed Isharani Baruah, who got the better of the promising Rakshita Sree S 23-21, 21-19, is now the highest seed left among the last eight and will take on Tasnim Mir in the quarterfinals.
Former world junior championships bronze medallist and second seed Ayush Shetty was the highest-ranked men’s singles player to be knocked out of the championships as he went down 21-15, 11-21, 21-5 against 14th seed Alap Mishra.
National Games gold medallist M Tharun was no match for former champion Mithun Manjunath’s guile as he went down 21-18, 21-12.
There was an upset galore even in the doubles events, with the women’s doubles top seeds Rutuparna and Shwetparna Panda suffering a 16-21, 16-21 loss at the hands of junior national champions Tanoo Chandra and Lalrempuii. Shreya Balaji and Deepta S then packed off fifth seeds Prerana Avlekar and Mrunmayee Deshpande 21-18, 23-21.
In the mixed doubles categories, Ayush Agarwal and Shruti Mishra combined well to beat sixth seed Sathwik Reddy K and Vaishnavi Khadkekar 21-18, 21-14 while Shivam Sharma and Poorvisha S Ram accounted for fifth seeds Ashith Surya and Amrutha P 12-21, 21-19, 21-18.
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