Tags:
Journalism of Courage
August 4: For some time now, Air-India’s Abhishek Bakshi and AP’s Shruthi Kurien have been hailed as the future stars of Indian badminton. And on Friday at the KBA Stadium, the two youngsters came up with a performance that justified such billing by handing out defeats to higher ranked, more famed rivals en route to booking their last eight berths in the 6th BPL all-India Open badminton tournament.
While Bakshi was his composed self in ousting third seed Chetan Anand by a 15-7, 15-13 margin, Shruthi dug deep into her reserves to pip Ketaki Thakkar and win 4-11, 11-5, 13-10.
These two results along with Trupti Murugunde’s upset 11-2, 11-6 win over former National champion PVV Lakshmi, provided relief from the list of lop-sided results on an arduous opening day of the four-day tournament.
Abhishek, now runs into last year’s runner-up Siddarth Jain in the quarterfinals.
QF lineup
Men: Gopi Chand vs Arup Baidya; Abhishek Bakshi vs Siddarth Jain; Anuj Gupta vs Nikhil Kanetkar; Sachin Ratti vs Abhinn Shyam Gupta. Women: Aparna vs Shruthi; Parul vs Neelima; Manjusha vs Trupti; Divya vs Meenakshi.
Results
Men’s singles (1st round): P Gopi Chand (IOC) bt Sankat Shetty (Mah) 15-5 15-3; SDS Krishna (AI) bt Joy T Anthony (Ker) 15-4 17-16; Arup Baidya (Rlys) bt Thomas Kurien (Ker) 15-1 15-11; Abhijit Naimpally (Kar) bt Madhur Kalia (Rlys) 17-14 15-3; B Chetan Anand (ONGC) bt Vijay Lancy (BPCL) 15-10 15-8; Abhishek Bakshi (AI) bt KR Shivashankar (TN) 15-4 15-11; Siddarth Jain (ONGC) bt Utsav Misra (UP) 15-4 15-4; JBS Vidyadhar (Rlys) bt KA Anish (Ker) 15-1 15-1; Anuj Gupta (GNFC) bt Ravinder Singh (UP) 15-4 15-5; Sanave Thomas (Ker) bt Srikanth Bakshi (Rlys) 12-15 15-8 15-3; Sushant Saxena (UP) bt BG Kiran (Kar) 14-17 15-8 17-14; Nikhil Kanetkar (IOC) bt Tarun Chauhan (Del) 15-0 15-1; Sandesh Chouta (Kar) bt Davinder Dhillon (Del) 15-7 15-9; Sachin Ratti (Rlys) bt Arvind Bhat (Kar) 15-9 15-5; Mayur Ghatnekar (Rlys) bt D Guruprasad (Kar) 10-15 17-14 15-12; Abhinn Shyam Gupta (AI) bt Jaison Xavier (Ker) 15-1 15-3.
PQF: Gopi Chand bt Krishna 15-5 15-7; Arup Baidya bt Abhijit Naimpally 15-8 15-7; Abhishek Bakshi bt Chetan Anand 15-7 15-13; Siddarth Jain bt JBS Vidyadhar 15-11 15-5; Anuj Gupta bt Sanave Thomas 17-14 15-3; Nikhil Kanetkar bt Sushanth Saxena 15-13 15-3; Sachin Ratti bt Sandesh Chouta 15-5 15-13; Abhinn Shyam Gupta bt Mayur Ghatnekar 15-4 15-2.
Women’s singles (1st Round): Krupa Telang (Mah) bt Tanuja Begum 11-6 11-0; Shruti S Kurien (AP) bt Radhika Reddy (AP) 11-5 11-5; Leena Pednekar (LIC) bt Neha Ganguly (AI) 4-11 11-1 11-7; Neelima Choudhary (BPCL) bt BN Ashwini (Kar) 11-7 4-11 11-6; G Jwala (AP) bt Meenakshi Wagh (Mah) 11-8 11-6; Trupti Murugunde (AI) bt Palkan Nagori (Guj) 11-4 11-5; Oli Deka (OIL) bt Ruchi Kapil (UP) 11-3 11-6; Nupura Bhide (Mah) bt BR Kokila (Kar) 11-6 11-5.
PQF: Aparna Popat (IOC) bt Krupa Telang 11-3 11-1; Shruti Kurien bt Ketaki Thakkar (AI) 4-11 11-5 13-10; Parul Priyadarshini (Rlys) bt Leena Pednekar 11-6 11-2; Neelima Choudhary bt Sampada Shetye (Mah) 11-7 11-9; Manjusha Kanwar (IOC) bt Jwala 11-2 11-4; Trupti Murugunde bt PVV Lakshmi (BPCL) 11-2 11-6; Divya Ramesh (LIC) bt Oli Deka 11-1 11-6; BR Meenakshi (Kar) bt Nupura Bhide (Mah).
