Togalkar, Patkar champs

In the sub-junior girls quarter-final, Aditi Jagannathan, Ruhi Chawla and Ashiwini Mokashi entered the semi-final. All three struggled in their quarter-final matches against their opponents who stretched the matches into five games.

Results (all quarter-finals)

Sub-junior Boys: Debmit Datta bt Omkar Togalkar 19-21, 21-15, 21-17, 21-17; Kalpesh Mohite bt Sohail Kothare 21-9, 21-9, 21-10; Sushant Kulkarni bt Sujan Narvekar 21-15, 21-9, 21-11

Sub-junior girls: Aditi Jaganathan bt Shweta Joshi 17-21, 21-13, 19-21, 21-17, 21-13; Ruhi Chawla bt Manasi Bhagwat 19-21, 22-20, 21-19, 8-21, 21-16; Ashwini Mokhashi bt Madhurika Caidhani 21-16, 18-21, 17-21, 22-20, 21-19;Rujuta Rege bt Madhurika Patkar 21-15, 21-9, 21-16

Easy for seeds

Most seeds had smooth sailing in the first round of the Entrant’s Division Chess Tournament organised by Bombay Chess Association at the Zandu Pharmaceuticals canteen today.

A record 224 participants are battling it out in the first of it’s kind event. Taking the huge number in account, players have been divided into two groups who will play preliminary matches of seven round Swiss league. The top 16 players from each group will then advance to a play-off of seven rounds to decide the winner.

In Group A, favourites Chandrakant Reddy, Pramod Kumar P and Mehul Sampat scored facile wins over Gautam Pednekar, Kartik Krishnan and Yogesh Rawat respectively. Sarita Karade, a blind player stretched Santosh Borkar before losing in 54 moves.

Last year’s Bombay University women’s champion, Shamala Karnik lost he game in 32 moves to Hansraj Singh. In other matches, Parag Terwadkar beat Shahbuddin Khan and Gaurav Hingne defeated RamdasBharate.