Senior National Championships: Anmol Kharb Among Top Six Women’s Singles Seeds To Bow Out

Defending champion Anmol Kharb along with five other seeded women’s singles players bowed out of the Senior National Badminton Championships after suffering defeats at the pre-quarterfinals here on Sunday.

Anmol, who recently reached the finals of the Guwahati Masters Super 100 tournament, lost 12-21 15-21 to 12th seed Shriyanshi Valishetty, while 16th seed Tasnim Mir packed-off top seed Aakarshi Kashyap 21-19, 21-17 in another match.

On the other courts, 15th seed Shreya Lele continued her impressive run as she came from a game down to beat former champion and second seed Anupama Upadhyaya 13-21, 21-18, 21-14 in a thrilling match.

Devika Sihag, seeded 13th, kept her composure to beat fourth seed and last edition runners-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 Rakshitha Sree S 23-21, 21-19 is now the highest seed left among the last eight and will take on Tasnim Mir in the quarter-finals.

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 15-21, 21-11, 5-21 against 14th seed Alap Mishra.

National Games gold medallist M Tharun was no match to former champion Mithun Manjunath’s guile as he went down 18-21, 12-21 in another match.

Upsets were galore in the doubles events as well with women’s doubles top seeds Rutaparna and Swetaparna Panda going down 16-21, 16-21 to junior national champions Tanoo Chandra and Lalrempuii.

Shreya Balaji and Deepta S then packed off fifth seeds Prerana Alvekar and Mrunmayee Deshpande 21-18, 23-21.

In the mixed doubles, 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.