The opening rounds of the Yonex-Sunrise Bombay Gymkhana Maharashtra Junior Badminton Tournament got underway here on Thursday at the Bombay Gymkhana with the seeded players advancing to the next stage without much trouble.
Top seed in the girls singles under-17 section, Prisha Shah playing on court two during the morning session though was not entirely at her fluent best but still had enough quality to register a fairly comfortable straight games victory, defeating Thane’s Soundarya Tiwari 15-5,15-6.
Featuring in this round-of-32 clash, the Palghar girl Prisha had little problems in navigating the opener but will look to be more clinical with her stroke play while minimizing errors moving ahead in the tournament.
The tournament is being organized under the auspices of the Greater Mumbai Badminton Association (GMBA) and the Maharashtra Badminton Association (MBA)
Pune’s Madhav Kamath, who is top seed in the boys singles under-17 segment also launched his campaign on a bright note.
The tall and lanky left-handed player who travelled from Pune earlier in the day, was hardly tested apart from a brief period in the second game before chalking out a convincing 15-2, 15-9 win over Meet Udhoji.
In contrast to majority of the one-sided matches, that marked the opening day’s play – Taanish Chavan fought back from an early setback to overcome the challenge of Devansh Rainak in a thrilling three-game battle, winning 11-15, 15-12, 15-13 in the boys singles under-17 category.
There was another result of note in the girls singles under-17 draw, where Aarya Karne mounted a strong comeback as she rallied from the tight opening game defeat to get past Ileana Rajesh 12-15, 15-11, 15-10 for a place in the next round.
As per the tournament regulations, all the matches up to the pre-quarter finals are being played on best-of-three format of 15 points, while from the quarter-final stage onwards, all the matches will follow the standard 21-point best-of-three games system.
