Guwahati: Former champion Rituparna Das of PSPB and top seed Riya Mookerjee of the Railways put on a brilliant display to book their berths in the pre-quarterfinals of the 83rd Senior National Badminton Championships here on Wednesday.
Also winning on Day 2 of India’s biggest domestic badminton event was former champion Sourabh Verma and 2017 runner-up Lakshya Sen, both of whom made it to the pre-quarters.
World No.57 Das, who was crowned the champion in 2017, needed only 24 minutes to breeze past Namita Pathania 21-10, 21-7.
Riya placed 114th in the world, staved off some stiff resistance from the ninth-seeded Gayatri Gopichand to win 21-17, 21-17.
The 14th seeded Sen continued his fine run from the Inter-Zonal competition with yet another facile 21-10, 21-10 victory over Bengal’s top seed Arintap Dasgupta.
Verma, the winner of the Nationals in 2011 and 2017, was equally dominant in his 21-13, 21-14 triumph over Munawer Mohammed.
Harsheel Dani of Maharashtra was made to work hard by Kartikey. The World No.131 fought back from a game down to register a 16-21, 21-18, 21-8 win in 56 minutes.
Sixth seed Aryamann Tandon beat Madhya Pradesh’s Priyanshu Rajawat 21-15, 21-10 while fifth seed Rahul Yadav from Telangana emerged a 21-12, 21-11 winner over Jaswanth D.
In the women’s singles, 14th seeded Malvika Bansod caused an upset by ousting the seventh-seeded Shikha Gautam 21-11, 21-16 in a fourth-round encounter that lasted 33 minutes.
Fourth seed Vaidehi Choudhari faced no hassles in her 21-17, 21-13 dismissal of Kerala’s Aadya Variyath.
Maharashtra’s sixth-seeded rising star Vaishnavi Bhale too progressed, courtesy of a 21-19, 21-9 win over the 10th seeded Reshma Karthik.
Maharashtra had a double delight on Day 2 of the Senior Nationals as the 15th seeded Neha Pandit showed her admirable fighting spirit in her 21-18, 20-22, 21-16 upset win over third seed Bhavya Rishi.
Eighth seed Shruti Mundada and unseeded Deepshikha Singh advanced when their respective opponents, Vrushali Gummadi and Deepali Gupta, retired.
Seasoned campaigners Manu Attri and Maneesha K, seeded seventh at this tournament, showed the door to the mixed doubles top seeds Utkarsh Arora and Karishma Wadkar 21-19, 21-18 on their way to the quarter-finals.
Shlok Ramchandran and Mithula UK also joined them by prevailing over Sanjai Srivatsa D and Kavipriya S 21-17, 21-13.
The veteran men’s doubles team of V Diju and Rupesh Kumar KT also kept their impressive run going. Kumar, former South Asian Games gold medallist, and Diju, a former World No. 6 in mixed doubles, required just 20 minutes to dispatch Prince Chaturvedi and Sangram Chutia 21-15, 21-11 en route to the pre-quarter-finals.
The top shuttlers, led by Saina Nehwal and P.V.Sindhu, will begin their challenge from Thursday.
The top eight seeds in singles have been directly placed in the pre-quarters while the top four seeds in doubles will start from the quarters.
