Bespectacled Shravani Panchal,from Thane, scored an engrossing 30-27 win over Vaishnavi Ghag, also from Thane, to breeze into the women’s singles semifinals in the in the Maharashtra State Open badminton tournament, organized by Badminton Organisation of Raigad at DY Patil Stadium’s badminton courts today.
Both the girls being from Shrikant Vad’s’ Thane Badminton academy, the match produced quite an enthralling rallies with Shravani keeping abreast till half way stage, before Vaishnavi fought back to catch her at 23-23. Sharvani again went up 27-26, before wrapping it up with three points in a row.
Tushar Mane from Raigad was very impressive while getting the better of Mumbai Suburbs Saurabh Bapat 30-27 to make the last eight grade in the men’s singes. Also through was Mumbai Suburbs’ Gaurav Rege, the second seed,who made short work of Thane’s Pushpak Khedkar 30-17.
Results: Women’s singles: (Quarterfinals):Shravani Panchal (Th) bt Vaishnavi Ghag (Th) 30-27. (Pre-quarterfinals):Tejasvi Pilankar bt Gayatri Kuchekar 30-13; Vaishnavi Ghag bt Aishwarya Kadlag 30-19; Shravani Panchal bt Nitya Ravindran 30-12;Neha Gaonkar bt Sania Bhivade 30-18..
Men’s singles (Pre-quarterfinals): Yogesh Patil bt Niket Warade 30-23; Viraf Patrawala bt Shreyas Kotian 30-28; (2) Gaurav Rege bt Pushpak Khedkar 30-17; Omkar Joshi bt Gokul Vekataraman 30-19; (4)Ruturaj Deshpande bt Daras Nader 30-22; Rishab Sainani bt Nilesh Bhatti 30-24; Tushar Mune bt saurabh Bapat 30-27;
BoysU-17 singles (Pre-quarterfinals): Sushant Ravva bt Chirag Jaisinghani 30-11; Yashoneel Bingley bt Akil Menon 30-18.
Girls U-17 singles (Pre-quarterfinals): Sejal Pathrabe bt Chinmayee Prabhu 30-28; Aditi Tadas bt Akshaya Ramakrishnan 30-11; Gauri Kadam bt Paakhi Vashistha 30-15.
CLOCK FOR SUNDAY
BADMINTON – 9.30 a.m. onwards – Maharashtra State Open badminton tournament, Vashi/Nerul (Navi Mumbai).