Qualifiers spotted

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, SEPT. 6. The qualifiers were spotted for the main draw of the Infineon Open badminton championship at the Raheja- Karnataka Badminton Association Stadium here on Thursday.

Among the winners in the final qualifying round include N. Shivaprakash of Karnataka, who defeated Mangrish Palekar 7-4, 7-0 and the former National star, Sushanth Saxena of Uttar Pradesh, who accounted for Mitesh Hazarnish of Maharashtra at 7-2, 7-2. Another easy winner was the local lad, B.G. Kiran, who beat D.S.N. Raju of Andhra Pradesh 7-1, 7-2.

The Bangalore teenager, Rohan Castelino, went down fighting to Varun Khanvilkar of Maharashta 7-5, 4-7, 2-7. The young Rohan had his chances in the second game, before committing few unforced errors, which turned the tide in his rival's favour. The doubles exponent, Jaseel P. Ismail of IOC, also scored a narrow 7-5, 7-5 victory over Gaurav Singh Sivach of the Railways.

It should be easy outings for all the seeded players in the first round on Friday and the top seed, Abhinn Shyam Gupta takes on K.R. Shivakumar of Tamil Nadu, while the second seed, Chetan Anand clashes with the doubles specialist, V. Diju of Kerala.

On the distaff side too, seeds should sail on but the first round match between the fourth seed, Divya Ramesh of Karnataka and Assam's Krishna Deka Raja could be interesting.

The pre-quarterfinal round is scheduled on Friday evening and it will be followed by quarterfinals and semifinals on Saturday. The finals are slated for Sunday.

The results (final qualifying round):

Men's singles: B.G. Kiran (Kar) bt D.S.N. Raju (AP) 7-1, 7-2; C.M. Sashidhar (AP) bt Kunal Makhwani (MP) 7-3, 7-0; Mayur Ghatnekar (Mah) bt Rupesh Kumar (Ker) 2-7, 7- 1, 7-1; Varun Khanvilkar (Mah) bt Rohan Castelino (Kar) 5-7, 7-4, 7-2; Jaseel P.Ismail (Ker) bt Gaurav Singh Sivach (Rly) 7-5, 7-5; Sushanth Saxena (UP) bt Mitesh Hazarnish (Mah) 7-2, 7-2; N. Shivaprakash (Kar) bt Mangrish Palekar (Mah ) 7-4, 7-0; Jibu Varghese (Ker) bt S.S. Kannan (TN) 7-1, 7-0.

Men's doubles: Anu Vasu/Vaishank (Ker) bt Manish Srivatsav/Vivek Tiwari (UP) 7-4, 7-0; Yuvaraj Kumar/Senthil Velan (TN) bt Shailendra Misra/Vivek Yadav (MP) 7- 0, 7-2; Shankar Ganesh/Venkatesh (TN) bt John of Matha/Madhu (Ker) 8-6, 7-5; Amit Kulkarni/Amit Saxena (MP) bt Srinath/Abhinand Shetty (Kar) 0-7, 7-3, 7-5.

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