Palekar, Nazneen steal show

KOCHI, DEC 16: Nineteen-year-old Mangrish Palekar of Railways authored the biggest upset of the BPL All-India Senior Masters Badminton Tour...

KOCHI, DEC 16: Nineteen-year-old Mangrish Palekar of Railways authored the biggest upset of the BPL All-India Senior Masters Badminton Tournament scalping third seed Sidharth Jain of Air-India on his way to the quarter-finals at the Rajiv Gandhi indoor stadium here today.

Palekar, who practises at PJ Hindu Gymkhana, Dadar, Mumbai accounted for the third seed in a match that was interrupted by power failure at 15-8, 15-5.

Palekar, who had beaten Sushant Saxena in the BPL tournament at Bangalore and had lost to Gopichand in the quarter-finals there, was in control right from the beginning and never allowed his opponent to settle down.

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Top seed P Gopichand of Andhra Pradesh had no problems beating Suneeth Sebastian of Kerala 15-10, 15-8 to enter the quarters.

In the women’s section seeded Divya Ramesh of Air-India lost to young Nazneen Karimi of Maharashtra in the pre-quarterfinals at 7-11, 11-12.

Earlier, in the first round, former national champion Rajeev Bagga of Maharashtra went down tamely to Davinder Dhillon of Delhi in a one-sided match at 15-12, 15-7.

Southpaw Ashish Chadha of Delhi,, gained in experience as he gave no chance to Vincent Lobo of Railways in the first round. Lobo, a semifinalist in the BPL tourney at Bangalore, lost 9-15, 10-15.

RESULTS (all PQF)

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Men’s singles: Gopichand bt Suneeth Sebastian 15-10, 15-8; Amrish Shinde bt ashish Chadha 15-4, 15-11; Srikant Bakshi bt Joy T Antony 15-6, 15-4; Nikhil Kanetkar bt D Dhillon 15-1, 15-5. Mangrish Palekar bt Sidharth Jain 15-8, 15-5; Jaison Xavier bt Vikrant Patwardhan 18-17, 18-15; Sushant Saxena bt Chetan Anand 15-8, 15-12, Abhin Shayam Gupta bt Parag Modi 15-6, 9-1 (conceded).

Women’s singles: Aparna Popat w/o Shalaka Damle; Manju Abraham bt Sampata Shetty 3-11, 11-6, 11-2; CN Deepthi bt Asavari P 12-10, 0-11, 11-3; Pooja Parekh bt Kirti Kadam 11-4, 11-4; Neelima Choudhary bt Devisuma 11-7, 11-6. Nirmala Kotnis bt BR Meenakshi 11-1, 12-10; Nazneen Karimi bt Divya Ramesh 11-7, 12-11; Laris bt Firoza Batliwala 4-11, 11-1, 11-2.