Bengaluru, Dec 21 Former champions Mithun Manjunath and Sourabh Varma banked on their experience to pack off their much younger opponents in straight games while holders Chirag Sen and Anmol Kharb also had it easy in the second round of the 86th Senior National Badminton Championship here on Saturday.
In the men’s singles second round matches, Mithun defeated third seed Bharat Raghav 21-9, 21-18 and Varma got the better of Abhinav Garg 21-17, 21-17. Defending champion Chirag Sen also started his campaign in style with a 21-15, 21-15 win over Jeet Patel.
In women’s singles, Anmol Kharb hammered Deepali Gupta 21-8, 21-6 to make a winning start while last edition’s losing finalist Tanvi Sharma also eased into the third round with a 21-8, 21-6 win over Flora Engineer.
While the favourites put their best foot forward, there were a few upsets that underlined the depth of talent in Indian badminton.
In women’s singles, Rujula Ramu upset 10th seed Surya Charishma Tamiri 21-19, 19-21, 21-17 while Jiya Rawat came from a game behind to beat ninth seed Shruti Mundada 25-27, 21-14, 21-10.
In the men’s singles section, Rohan Gurbani proved too good for 11th seed K. Lokesh Reddy, winning 21-15, 21-1 while Raghu M. defeated 15th seeded Karthik Jindal 21-19, 21-16.
It was the win of experience over youth in women’s doubles with Kanika Kanwal and Bharti Pal teaming up to upset sixth seeds Amrutha P. and Radhika Sharma 25-23, 21-17 in the top national event for the season.
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