TN’s Mukesh springs a surprise

Former World Champion K Srinivas of PSPB hogged the limelight with a break to finish in the third board of the second game as he went on to record a fluent 25-11, 25-0 win against Ansaar of Rajasthan in a men’s singles first round match.

In the Sub-Junior Boys Team Championship held concurrently, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra lads recorded convincing victories to advance to the semi-final round. 

In quarter-final encounters, Tamil Nadu team comprising M. Kaushik and A. Musaraf, both playing the singles and the doubles pair of Guruprasath and Sandeep defeated Vidarbha 3-0. 

In contrast the Maharashtra team encountered a bit of challenge from Assam before romping to a 3-0 win. The Maharashtra singles players, Ojas Jadhav and Mayuresh Naik, both had to dig deep to win their respective matches. Ojas got the better of Wakib Iqbal Hussain 12-5, 7-13, 14-6, while Mayuresh dropped the first game but rallied well to overcome Sahil Rahman 6-18, 14-8, 15-7. However, Maharashtra’s doubles combination of Om Taware and Pratham Mehta proved too good as they blanked the Assam duo of Dipak Rai and Faruq Sheikh 21-0, 22-0.

In the other quarter-final matches, Bihar prevailed over Hyderabad 2-1 and Delhi defeated Uttar Pradesh by a similar 2-1 scoreline, to also progress to the semi-finals.

In the sub-junior boys singles first round encounter, Maharashtra Arpan Bandivadekar showed great fighting spirit as he came back from a game down to defeat Tayyab Raila of Goa by a 1317, 16-9, 21-4. 

Results: Team championship - Sub-Junior Boys (quarter-finals): Maharashtra beat Assam 3-0; Bihar beat Hyderabad 2-1; 

Delhi bt UP 2-1, TN bt Vidarbha 3-0 (M Kaushik bt Adi Samubre 10-5, 12-9; A. Musaraf bt S Nadim 16-10, 20-16; Guruprasath/Sandeep bt Mohd. Amin/Tanish Markande 21-8, 21-3). 

Sub-Junior Boys singles (Round 1): Ojas Jadhav (Mah) bt Sagar Kumar (Jha) 21-0, 21-0; A Musaraf (TN) bt Priyanshu Yadav (UP) 21-1, 20-15; A Bandivadekar (Mah) bt T Raila (Goa) 13-17, 16-9, 21-4; M Kaushik (TN) bt R Khainar (Mah) 21-4, 21-0.