Bengaluru, Dec 21 (PTI) Former champions Mithun Manjunath and Sourabh Varma relied on their experience to pack off their much younger opponents in the second round of the 86th Senior Nationals Badminton tournament here on Saturday.
Defending champions Chirag Sen and Anmol Kharb also had easy outings.
Mithun defeated third seed Bharat Raghav 21-9, 21-18 before Varma got the better of Abhinav Garg 21-17, 21-17 in the men’s singles second round matches.
Chirag Sen also started his campaign in style with a 21-15, 21-15 win over Jeet Patel.
In women’s singles, Anmol hammered Deepali Gupta 21-8, 21-6, while last edition’s runner-up Tanvi Sharma also eased into the third round with a 21-8, 21-6 win over Flora Engineer.
While the favourites put their best foot forward, there were a few upsets that underlined the depth of talent in Indian badminton.
In women’s singles, Rujula Ramu shocked 10th seed Surya Charishma Tamiri 21-19, 19-21, 21-17 while Jiya Rawat came from a game behind to beat ninth seed Shruti Mundada 25-27, 21-14, 21-10.
In the men’s singles section, Rohan Gurbani proved too good for 11th seed K Lokesh Reddy, winning 21-15, 21-1, while Raghu M defeated 15th seed Karthik Jindal 21-19, 21-16.
In women’s doubles, Kanika Kanwal and Bharti Pal combined to upset sixth seeds Amrutha P and Radhika Sharma 25-23, 21-17. PTI AH AH TAP
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