Shuttlers Bennet, Reddy in quarters of all-India senior doubles tourney

Top seeds Antony Bennet and M. Arjun Kumar Reddy swept aside Chandrabhushan Tripathi and Shubham Yadav in straight games to storm into the quarter-final of the Rs two lakh-Bishnupriya Kundu Memorial All India senior doubles ranking badminton tournament here on Thursday.

Telangana's Arjun, seventh in All India rankings, and Bennet of Kerala, who is ranked 13th in doubles, won by a scoreline of 21-18, 21-14.

Second seeds Vighnesh Devlekar of Air India and partner Saurabh Sharma got the better of Anjan Buragohain and Ranjan Buragohain by 21-19, 21-11 to reach the last-eight stage.

Star shuttlers V. Diju and Chetan Anand lived up to their billing to thrash Abinash K. and Saran Raj R. 21-8, 21-9.

In the women's doubles pre-quarters, Assam's Dimpal Hazarika and Sanghmitra Saikia beat local girls Smaranika Singh and Ipsita Sinha 21-15, 21-17 while Nisha Karamchand and Kanwaljeet Kaur came from a game down to record a 17-21, 21-17, 21-17 victory.

In the mixed doubles section, top seeds Agna Anto of Kerala partnered with Balasubrahmanniyan N. G. to defeat Siddharth of Haryana and Manali Sinha of Assam 21-17, 21-9.

--IANS

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