Kanpur: City shuttlers began their campaign in the UP State Senior Badminton Tournament at the Green Park Indoor Hall on a winning note on Thursday.Around 370 players, including 75 girls, are participating in the four-day championship having prize money of Rs one lakh.The competition was inaugurated in the presence of chairman Manoj Pandey, president Dr AK Agrawal, Ramavatar Shukla, Kamal Kataria (director of Vidisha Sabun), Karmveer Singh (RSO), Dr Manisha Agrawal, vice-president Dhirendra Singh, Jitendra Gautam, Sanjeev Pathak, Ajendra Rai, and the chief referee.District magistrate Mahendra Singh Tanwar was introduced to the players. Office-bearers and sports enthusiasts—including Kanpur Badminton Association secretary DP Singh, Mahip Saxena, Saurabh Srivastava, Keshav Dwivedi, Ashish Kumar Gaur, and Irshad Ahmed—were present on the occasion.In the women’s singles event, players from Kanpur put up impressive performances: Mansa Srivastava (Kanpur) defeated Shahun Singh (Noida) 30-18; Siddhi Jha (Kanpur) beat Jayashree Gupta (Prayagraj) 30-22; Nikita Bhatia (Kanpur) defeated Jyoti Gupta (Maharajganj) 30-26; and Aradhya Yadav (Kanpur) beat Riddhima Chaubey 30-25, all advancing to the next round.In the men’s singles matches, Saurabh Shukla (Prayagraj) defeated Rudrang Yadav (Kanpur) 30-8, Naman Khanna (Kanpur) defeated Ravindra Kumar Priyadarshi (Lucknow) 30-16, and Shivam Shekhar (Ballia) defeated Nikhil Pal (Kanpur) 30-9.Dhruv (Kanpur) defeated Riddhi Vinayak (Prayagraj) 30-6, Atharv Sharma (Meerut) beat Tanishk Kumar Singh (Kanpur) 30-11, and Saumya Prakash Yadav (Prayagraj) defeated Aditya Singh (Lucknow) 30-24 to advance to the next round. Among the girls, Siddhi Jha (Kanpur) defeated Jayashree (Prayagraj) 30-24 to move to the next stage.Aditya Sagar Agrahari (Maharajganj) defeated Nikhil (Banda) 30-10, Aryan Singh (Kanpur) defeated Aarzoo Kushwaha (Kanpur) 30-8, Bhavishya Nagar (Noida) defeated Atharv Agarwal (Bareilly) 30-25, and Vedansh (Mathura) defeated Shivam Joshi (Lucknow) 30-17.Kartik Gupta (Kanpur) defeated Ayush Gaur (Noida) 30-16, Abhijit Singh (Jhansi) defeated Shivam Karata (Moradabad) 30-17, Karan Pratap Singh (Bareilly) defeated Tejas Dixit (Kanpur) 30-4, and Tanmay Pal (Mathura) defeated Vikas Rao (Mirzapur) 30-11.On Friday, matches will be played from 8 am.
