85th Senior National Badminton: Shriyanshi stun defending champ Anupama to enter quarters

Guwahati: Shriyanshi Valishetty put up an impressive performance to beat the defending champion Anupama Upadhyaya with a stunning come-from-behind 18-21, 21-13, 21-17 win in the women’s singles round-of-16 match at the 85th Senior National Badminton Championships 2023 on Friday.

The 16-year-old from Telangana, Shriyanshi conceded the first game but made the former junior World No. 1 Anupama work hard for each point. The youngster found her rhythm as the match progressed. She made a strong comeback to win the next two games with a dominating display.

Shriyanshi will face home favourite Isharani Baruah in the quarter-final. Baruah thrashed Rhucha Sawant of Maharashtra 21-11, 21-13.

Top seed Aakarshi Kashyap and Assam’s Ashmita Chaliha also made their ways into the quarters with comfortable victories. While Aakarshi got the better of Rajasthan’s Sakshi Phogat 21-9, 21-13, Ashmita triumphed over Surya Charishma Tamiri of Andhra Pradesh 21-15, 21-10.

Aakarshi will face Badminton Asia U-17 & U-15 Junior Championships 2023 silver medallist Tanvi Sharma whereas Ashmita will be up against Meghana Reddy M in the Last-8 stage.

Meanwhile in the men’s singles pre-quarters, defending champion Mithun Manjunath secured a 21-17, 22-20 win over Bhargav Somasundara. BWF World Championships bronze medallist Lakshya Sen too made progress with a convincing 21-16, 21-11 victory against Abhishek Saini. They will face Kiran George and Bharat Raghav respectively in Last-8.

Men’s doubles category saw top seeds Krishna Prasad-Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala and in-form pair of Hariharan Amsakarunan-Ruban Kumar R winning their respective matches on Day 3. Krishna and Vishnuvardhan beat Ayush Makhija-Sujey Tamboli 21-16, 21-18 while Hariharan and Ruban moved past Viplav and Viraj Kuwale 21-14, 21-14.

Women’s doubles and mixed doubles category, on the other hand, witnessed big upsets with the top seeded pairs bowing out in both the categories.

The reigning mixed doubles champions T Hemanagendra Babu-Kanika Kanwal were ousted by Ayush Agarwal-Shruti Mishra 21-13, 16-21, 21-15 whereas women’s doubles duo of Arulbala R-Varshini VS fell short against Aparna Balan-Rituparna Das 19-21, 21-17, 21-12 in the pre-quarterfinals.