Seeded players find it easy

July 29: The inaugural day of the Maharashtra State Selection Badminton Tournament held no surprises as most of the seeds sailed through ...

July 29: The inaugural day of the Maharashtra State Selection Badminton Tournament held no surprises as most of the seeds sailed through their opening round encounters at the MIG, Bandra and Khar Gymkhana, today.Top seed, Nikhil Kanitkar of Pune edged out second round opponent, Raj Kumar in straight games with scores of 15-2, 15-1.

Kanitkar looked in fine nick as he systematically demolished the Mumbai lad with crisp, cross-court smashes. Both players had got first round byes.All the other seeds also faced little resistance to book their place in the pre-quarters.Mumbai’s Rajeev Bagga, seeded second, brushed aside a late challenge by Karan Modi, also of Mumbai, to register a 15-2, 15-10 win in the second round. Sachin Bharati of Mumbai put up a brave challenge before succumbing to third seed Mayur Tawade, 15-10, 15-5.

Fourth seed Vikrant Patwardhan and sixth seed Sanket Shetty also advanced with ease.Thane’s Nimesh Goel was the only seeded player to fall out from the race. The seventh seed from Thanefailed to turn up for his second round encounter at Khar Gymkhana.Earlier in the day, Thane’s Anupam Singh, rallied from being a set down to outclass Anand Chawan 13-15, 15-3, 15-6.In another interesting second round tie, Rutuparna Kulkarni of Aurangabad overcame a tough challenge by Harshad Tawade to win in three sets. Kulkarni took the first game 15-10 and was leading the second when tawade struck form. A hard fought battle of smashes and clever drops followed. Tawade finally won the game 15-13 to level scores.But Kulkarni came back strongly in the third game with an erring Tawade handing him the game, 15-5 and the match. Earlier, Kulkarni scored a 15-9, 15-9 win over Tahne’s Ajay Salvi in the first round.

RESULTS(Day One)Round One: Siddharth Nadkarni bt Imran Maindargi 15-7, 15-11; Rutuparna Kulkarni bt Ajay Salvi 15-9, 15-9; Harshad Tawade w/o PV Sujaykumar; Kunal Vaswani bt Prashant D’Costa 15-11, 15-4; Prashant Bahatre w/o Yogesh Kargutkar; Alok Singh bt Suresh Jadhav 15-2, 15-1; BhushanPaithankar bt Vinayak Puthran 15-8, 15-4; Anupam Singh bt Anand Chawan 13-15, 15-3, 15-6; Vilas Kuwale bt Bharat Bhosale 15-10, 15-11; Rahul Tipnis bt Pranil Achrekar 15-0, 15-2; Amogh Kulkarni bt Kashyap Parekh 15-1, 15-1; Himanshu Thakkar bt Akhil Anand Rawat 15-4, 15-0; Suraj Thakur bt Mandar Ranade 15-6, 15-8; Murali Subramaniam bt Santosh Kshatriya 15-3, 15-5Round Two (at MIG): 1-Nikhil Kanitkar bt Raj Kumar 15-2, 15-1; Siddharth Nadkarni bt Umesh Morje 15-1, 15-0; Rutuparna Kulkarni bt Harshad Tawade 15-10, 13-15, 15-5; 3-Mayur Tawade bt Sachin Bharati 15-10, 15-5(At Khar Gym): Anupam Singh bt Vilas Kuwale 15-3, 15-5; 6-Sanket Shetty bt Bezad Dewadwala 15-4, 15-6; Amogh Kulkarni bt Rahul Tipnis 15-3, 15-3; 4-Vikrant Patwardhan bt Gautam Patki 15-6, 15-0; Himanshu Thakkar bt Suraj Thakur 15-12 15-7; Sandeep Dhillon w/o 7-Nimesh Goel; Murli Subramaniam w/o Nilesh Phanasalkar; 2-Rajiv Bagga bt Karan Modi 15-2, 15-10.

Debris found in Dal Lake could be from missile Pak fired during Op Sindoor

India2 hr ago

Debris believed to be from a missile fired by Pakistan during Operation Sindoor in May has been found in Srinagar's Dal Lake. The debris has been handed over to the Air Force for further investigation. Sources say the target may have been a military installation in Srinagar, which is close to the lake. The make of the missile is yet to be determined.

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