Madhurika, Ankita
Fourth seed Madhurika Patkar and fifth seed Anikita Das were taken the distance before entering the women singles round of 32 of the 11Sports national ranking championships (North Zone) at the Gautam Buddha University hall in Greater Noida near here on Tuesday.
However, it was curtains for men’s sixth seed Sougata Sarkar who bowed out in the round of 64 to Karnataka’s Anirban Roychoudhury 4-3, while other seasoned players struggled to get past their rivals on the second day of the championships.
The rusty Madhurika was in trouble against Madhya Pradesh junior Anusha Kutumbale and despite being 3-2 up, lost the sixth before closing out the match 6-11, 11-5, 13-11, 10-12, 14-12, 4-11, 11-8.
Ankita Das was also extended Delhi’s Kritika Malik despite leading 3-1. Kritika staged a remarkable recovery to take two back-to-back games to mount pressure on Ankita, though the Olympian held on to win 11-9, 1113, 11-9, 11-8, 7-11, 8-11, 11-2.
Left-hander Shruti Amrute from Maharashtra ousted Nikhat Banu of RBI after Nikhat was pushed to second in her group by Vanshika Bhargava of Delhi, who progressed into the round of 32 with a clinical 4-2 win over Shreya Ghosh of Railways.
Yashini Sivasankar of Tamil Nadu knocked out the seasoned Mamata Prabhu of Dena Bank 11-13, 3-11, 11-8, 11-9, 7-11, 13-11, 117 after Pallbi Kundu of RBI fell 32 to Mahadani Sangita, a qualifier from West Bengal.
But it was Anirban Roychoudhury who drew attention in packing off sixth seed Sougata Sarkar of LIC 2-11, 6-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-8, 8-11, 12-10.