Times News NetworkKanpur: Top-seeded Siddharth Mishra of Lucknow, Neer Nehwal and Siddhant Salar sailed into the semi-finals of men’s singles event of Yonex Sunrise Late Sitaram Pandey memorial UP State Senior Major Badminton championship played at Green Park indoor hall on Saturday.Besides them, Rajan Yadav of UP too entered the last four after defeating Abhyansh Singh of Varanasi by 12-15, 16-14, 15-12. Game-wise, this was the best quarter-final tie in which both players displayed their skills. Rajan, losing the first game by 12-15, staged a comeback in the second, registering a win of 16-14. Thereafter he maintained his winning rhythm.Top seed Siddharth Mishra easily drubbed Ansh Handa of Saharanpur in two games by 15-12 and 15-4. Third-seeded Siddhant Salar of Lakhimpur Kheri too easily humbled Sanrekh Chaurasia of Jhansi by 15-9, 15-11. Second-seeded Neer Nehwal of Noida had to struggle against Devang Tomar of Moradabad by 8-15, 15-8, 15-9.In women’s singles quarter-finals, seeded players performed according to their name and fame. Top seed Divyanshi Gautam drubbed the challenge of Neha Maurya of Noida in two games by 15-10, 15-7.Second seed Kajal Panwar of Hapur easily defeated Nehal Pal of Varanasi by 15-6, 15-7. In the remaining two quarter-finals, Taranjit Singh of Moradabad beat Nalin Kishore of Muzaffar Nagar by 15-7, 15-6, and Kuhu of Agra outplayed Neha Singh of Lucknow by 15-17, 15-9, 15-7.Prominent figures present during the competition included JJ Pittet, a Rolls-Royce engineer from Switzerland, Rita Saxena, principal of Scholarship Mission School, Manoj Pandey, chairman of the Kanpur Badminton Association and Dr AK Agrawal, the Association’s president.The results are: Men’s Doubles (quarter-finals) – Ayush Agarwal (Agra) & Daksh Gautam bt Devanshu Jawala & Tushar Sharma by 15-7, 15-12; Atul Kumar & Pradeep Kumar (Saharanpur) bt Junaid Ansari & Vishal Singh Chandel by 15-6, 15-11. The pair of Archit Sinha and Shivam Verma defeated Himanshu Mittal and Pradeep Chaudhary by 15-7, 15-5, and Arush Srivastava and Rajan Yadav advanced to the semi-finals by defeating Farhan Khan and Rahul Kumar Shah 16-14, 15-7 in a hard-fought match.Mixed Doubles (quarter-finals) – The pair of Ashmit Singh (Sonbhadra) and Riddhi Bhardwaj (Hapur) defeated Hisham Aziz (Varanasi) and Sneha Singh (Lucknow) 15-7, 15-10. Archit Sinha and Vibhuti Sinha (Unnao) defeated Ansh Vishal Gupta (Prayagraj) and Saumya Singh 12-15, 15-12, 15-11.Pradeep Chaudhary (Aligarh) and Samiksha Tyagi (Ghaziabad) defeated Nizamuddin (Sitapur) and Shweta Raj Verma (Lucknow) 15-9, 15-6.Pradeep Chaudhary (Aligarh) and Samiksha Tyagi (Ghaziabad) defeated Nizamuddin (Sitapur) and Shweta Raj Verma (Lucknow) 15-9, 15-6.
