Qualifiers spotted

By Kalyan Ashok

BANGALORE, AUG. 8. After a hectic session of preliminary rounds, the qualifiers were spotted in the Asian satellite badminton championship at the Karnataka Badminton Association Stadium here on Wednesday.

In the men's section, Sushanth Saxena, one of the top guns on the Indian scene a few seasons ago, had to slug his way past the three rounds to make it to the main draw.Sushanth showed his old flair, to douse the challenge of Rupesh Kumar of Kerala in the final round at 21-14.

The Indian junior Anup Sridhar, who was back home after attending a World Badminton Academy clinic in Auckland recently, also booked a spot in the main draw with a convincing 21-11 win over S.D.S.Krishna.The local lad Rohan Castelino, waged a see-saw battle with Shivakumar of Tamil Nadu in the final round. with leads changing hands often, Rohan down 17-18, did well to prevail at 21-19. Another Karnataka player, Shivaprakash also made it to the main draw with a hard fought 23-20 win over Amar Singh Kundi of Gujarat. Shivaprakash equalising at 20 all and won on extra points .

In the women's section, Neelima Choudhry , the Indian international failed to make it to the main round as she was stopped by Karnataka's Shalini Prakash at 15-13.It was indeed big win for Shalini, who takes on the former National champion, P.V.V.Lakshmi in the opening round on Thursday .

In the women's singles main draw , the top seed B.R.Meenakshi takes on Sampada Shetty in her opener, while National champion, Aparna Popat meets the qualifier, Fathima Nazneen Mohammed. The third seed, Salakjit Polsana of Thailand will also meet another qualifier, Krishna Deka Raja of Assam. The fourth seed, Divya Ramesh has a face-off against the promising Shruthi Kurien.

In the men's singles, the top seed, Andrew South of England runs into Nishad Dravid of India and the second seed, Siddarth Jain is pitted against Vidhaydhar.The third seed, Chetan Anand takes on Joy Antony and fourth seed, Mark Burgess of England meets the local lad, Abhijith Naimpally .

The opening rounds are loaded in favour of the seeded players , but the last 16 stage, slated later on Thursday afternoon and it should witness some contests.

lThe results ( final qualifying round-all names Indian unless specified) : Men's singles : Rohan Castelino bt Shivakumar 21-19; Sushanth Saxena bt Rupesh Kumar 21-14; B.G.Kiran bt A.Pridhvi 21- 12; Anup Sridhar bt S.D.S.Krishna 21- 11; N.Shivaprakash bt Amar Singh Kundi 23-20; Mayur Ghatnekar bt Savan Navas 21-5; Nimish Goel bt Ajanatha Choudhry 21-17; K.A.Aneesh bt C.M.Shashidhar 21- 8.

Women's singles :Shalini Prakash bt Neelima Choudhry 15-13; Shruthi Kurien bt Ch.Deepthi 15-8;Fathima Nazneen Mohd bt Oli Deka 15-1; Krishna Deka Raja bt A.Divya 15-5/

Men's doubles :Bhaskar Bora/Parveen Ghaliwat bt Nagaraj/Vikas Reddy 21-12; Nishad Dravid /Bhaniman Bora bt Yashu Kumar /Krishna Kumar 21-2; Ajit Haridoss/A.Srinivasan bt Abhijith Naimpally/ B.N.Sudhakar bt 21- 7; K. Srinivasan/J.B. Vidyadhar bt S.D.S. Krishna/Chiloop Valsan 21-18.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Szabo's late surge leaves Szekely high and dry
Next     : Winning start by Gopi Chand