Mumbai: Top seed Urwashi Joshi of Maharashtra overcame a shaky start to defeat unseeded Amita Gondi of Telangana and advance to the quarterfinals of the 44th Maharashtra State Senior Open Squash Tournament being played here on Sunday.
Joshi won 9-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-4.
Second seed Tanvi Khanna of Delhi outplayed unseeded Subhadra Sony 11-1, 11-0, 11-0 to advance to the quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, Nikita Agarwal of Maharashtra, who is seeded in the [5/8] bracket was made to work hard for her win against unseeded state-mate Aakanksha Yadav.
After losing the first two games tamely, Aakanksha raised her game to take the next two games and level the scores. Nikita managed to pull herself back to take the last game 11-5 and the match 11-7, 11-4, 5-11, 8-11, 11-5 to advance to the quarter-finals.
In the Men's Open, junior Yash Fadte and Rahul Baitha soldiered on to make it to the quarterfinals. While Yash Fadte made short work of an unseeded Parth Bhatia, Rahul Baitha upset an higher-ranked Ranjit Singh of Services defeating 11-1, 11-7, 8-11, 11-9 to advance to the quarters.
Top seeds Mahesh Mangaonkar and Abhishek Pradhan remain strong contenders for the title as they notched straight games wins to blaze into the quarters.
