Indian Open Squash: Akanksha, Cheng enter quarters

The top two seeds Akanksha Salunkhe and Cheng Nga Ching (Hong Kong) set the trend for the day with easy victories in the Girls Under-15 category en route to the quarter-finals in the Indian Open junior squash tournament here Wednesday.

Joining the duo in the quarter-finals was Lui Hin Lam from Hong Kong who won her match in three games against 3-4 seeded Shamika Reddy, but Malaysia's Lin Wen Li, seeded in the 5-8 group, went down to Koel Shankar 1-3.

In the boys' Under-13 section, Malaysia's Mohd. Hafiz Zhafri, the top seed, won both his matches to storm in the quarter-finals that will be played Thursday.

The other top seeded players to also qualify for the round of eight included Navaneet Prabhu (B-11), Adithya Raghavan (B-15), Sandeep Ramachandran (B-17) and favourite Kush Kumar (B-19).

The results (pre-quarter-finals):

BOYS - Under-11: 1-Navaneeth Prabhu bt Mohit Bhatt 11-1 11-3 11-6; Mahanshu Gupta bt Ayaan Vaid 11-3 11-1 11-0; Kanhav Nanavati bt Siva Dharshan 12-10 11-7 11-7; 3-Druv Vazirani bt Lakshit Bohra 11-6 8-11 11-2 11-9; 4-Tanay Punjabi bt Ameeshenraj Chandran (Malaysia) 11-1 11-5 11-5; Athrva Yadav bt Shreemann Raghavan 11-9 4-11 12-10 11-9; Yash Salunkhe bt Parthiv N Yagnesh 11-8 11-3 11-4; 2-Neel Joshi bt Aryan Khandelwal 11-4 11-8 11-2.

Under-13: 1-Mohd. Hafiz Zhafri (Malaysia) bt Niel Sadarangani (Hong Kong) 11-7 11-9 11-5; Yashwanth Ragav bt Ansh Punjabi 11-9 11-6 11-3; Saksham Choudhary bt Ansh Shetty 7-11 11-5 11-3 11-5; 3-Tushar Shahani bt Kunal Singh 11-1 11-5 11-6; 4-Utkarsh Baheti bt Keshav Pillai 11-3 11-5 11-2; Yash Fadte bt Pranav N Visvesh 11-9 11-8 12-10; Rahul Baitha bt Advait Adik 11-5 11-6 5-11 11-2; 2-Veer Chotrani bt Shlok Makhija 11-6 11-7 11-5.

Under-15: 1-Adhitya Raghavan bt Dev Vazirani 11-6 11-6 14-12; Yohann Surti bt Chaitanya Shah 8-11 12-10 8-11 11-9 11-6; Krish Kapur bt Rahil Peris 11-3 11-4 11-3; 3-Aryaman Adik bt Siddhant Iyer 11-5 9-11 11-8 6-11 11-8; 4-Vikas Mehra bt RA Charaniyaselvan 8-11 11-6 11-3 11-6; Yash Bhargava bt Aryan Parekh 11-9 11-4 11-4; Abhay Singh bt Aman Kumbhani 11-9 11-5 7-11 13-15 11-9; 2-Robin Singh Mann bt Ramit Bhargava 11-4 11-2 11-7.

Under-17: 1-Sandeep Ramachandran bt Siddarth Choudhary 11-4 8-11 11-6 11-8; Rahul Sehrawat bt Jasmer Singh 11-4 11-6 11-9; Sandeep Paswan bt Pranav Bassi 11-5 11-7 11-7; 3-Yohan Pandole bt Mradul Agrawal 11-5 11-5 10-12 11-8; 4-Aishwary Singh bt Aseem Mehra 11-7 11-7 11-5; Mudit Pant bt Vedant Baheti 11-6 11-7 11-6; Siddharth Singh bt Divyanshu Sharma 11-7 11-9 11-6; 2-Velavan Senthil Kumar bt Rishabh Agarwal 11-3 11-5 11-6.

Under-19: 1-Kush Kumar bt Puneet Pareek 11-4 11-1 11-8; Arjun Kochhar bt Hiteshwar Singh Riar 11-5 11-6 11-3; Ankit Yashen Acharya bt Vijay Kumar 11-3 11-7 11-5; 3-Abhimanyu Shah bt Vaarish Sawlani 11-3 11-3 11-4; 4-Ranvijay Singh bt Jitender Lalwani 11-1 11-6 11-2; Madhav Dhingra bt Sanjeev Sridharan 11-4 11-2 11-1; Guhan Senthil Kumar bt Sarthak Tongia, 11-3 11-7 11-9; 2-Deepak Mishra bt Shashwat Mehrotra 11-3 11-2 11-3.

GIRLS - Under-15: 1-Akanksha Salunkhe bt Sanika Choudhari 11-4 11-6 11-5; Koel Shankar bt Lai Wen Li (Malaysia) 7-11 12-10 11-2 11-6; Vedika Arun bt Diya Joukani (NZ) 9-11 12-10 12-10 11-2; Lui Hiu Lam (Hong Kong) bt 3-Shamika Reddy 11-7 11-7 11-8; 4-Nehaarika Balamurukan bt Mahima Gupta 11-7 11-3 11-4; Nikita Joshi bt Aakanksha Rao 11-3 11-4 11-6; Sunayna Kuruvilla bt Janvi Rathore 11-5 11-7 11-2; 2-Cheng Nga Ching (Hong Kong) bt Shrishti Nagar 11-3 11-2 11-5.