Madhubani: Santu Kumar of Munger shocked second seed Akash Thakur of Samastipur 21-17, 16-21, 21-15 in a tough 50-minute third round match of the men’s singles and entered the quarterfinals of the Bihar State Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament being played here on Thursday.
On the other hand, in the first round of women’s singles, Madhubani’s Ritika Gupta defeated Nawada’s Kavya Kumari 21-3, 21-9 in only 15 minutes and entered the second round. Madhubani’s Kalyani Kumari got a walkover against Nalanda’s Sugandha Kumari and Patna’s Simran Singh got a walk over against Shikha Sharma and they also entered the second round.
Shaheen Akhtar of Saharsa defeated Sara Kausar of Patna by 22-20, 13-21, 21-18 in a match that lasted 45 minutes. Tabrez of Patna defeated Tushar Kumar Setu of Vaishali 21-16, 21-18 in just 25 minutes.
The tournament is being organised by Madhubani District Badminton Association from August 16 to August 20 under the aegis of Bihar Badminton Association. About 150 players from 22 districts including Madhubani, Patna, Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Purnia, Katihar, Buxar, Darbhanga, Samastipur, Gaya, Kaimur, Jehanabad, Bettiah, Bhagalpur, Begusarai, Khagaria, Munger, Nalanda, Nawada, Saharsa and Siwan are taking part in the tournament. More than 150 senior men and women from all over Bihar are participating in the tournament in singles, doubles and mixed doubles events.
In the remaining matches of men’s singles, Peyod Pushkar of Munger, Amrit Raj of Muzaffarpur, Manish Kumar of Vaishali, Sameer Raj of Purnia, Yash Vardhan of Muzaffarpur, Harshmani Singh of Darbhanga won their respective matches of third round and entered the quarterfinals.
In women’s singles, Begusarai’s Vaishvi Bhushan defeated Saharsa’s Kashish Raj 21-03, 21-02 and Madhubani’s Riya Kumari defeated Supaul’s Sidra Fatima 21-06, 21-12 to enter the next round.
In other women’s singles matches, Kaimur’s Fiza Hussain beat Siddhi Gupta of Gaya, Khagaria’s Jasika Rani beat Sukriti Priya of Gaya, Samastipur’s Anshika Arya beat Madhubani’s Swati Shikha and entered the next round.
In men’s doubles, Pawan Kumar and Zeeshan Alam of Saharsa got a walkover against Devesh Kumar and Mukul Verma of Patna and advanced to the next round. Harshmani Singh and Majid Nabi of Darbhanga after losing the first set defeated Aditya Kumar Choudhary and Rishab Raj of Samastipur 20-22, 21-16, 23-21 in a 3 set match to enter the next round. On the other hand, the pair of Amrit Raj of Muzaffarpur and Aryan Pratap of Patna defeated Abhiraj of Purnia and Vineet of Vaishali by 21-17, 21-19 in straight sets. While Vaishali’s Satyam Prakash and Tushar Kumar Setu defeated Bhagalpur’s Shivam Jain and Sunny Satyarthi in straight sets of 21-13, 21-16.
It may be mentioned here that during the 35 years of establishment of Madhubani Badminton, 32 times state -level and 6 times national- level badminton tournaments have been organised here. Men and women players playing in singles, doubles and mixed doubles events of this tournament can get a chance to participate in the upcoming senior national badminton tournament based on their performance.
