Iyer scares top seed Singh

Top seed Abhay Singh of Tamil Nadu was stretched by third seed Siddhant Iyer of Maharashtra before advancing to the boys' under-17 final in the 39th Bombay Gymkhana Maharashtra State Open Junior Squash Championship here today.
Singh overcame a strong challenge from Iyer to post a hard-fought 13-11 9-11 11-8 19-17 win and set up a title clash with fourth seed Aryaman Adik who ousted second seed Sandeep Paswan in straight games in the other semifinal.
In other groups, Jeh Pandole stunned second seed Shreyas Mehta in the boys' under-11 semi-final while Tushar Shahani, who won gold in the Hong Kong Junior Open recently, upset second seed Utkarsh Baheti of Rajasthan 3-1 to enter the boys'under-15 final.

Boys' under 11 top seed Aakash Gupta, under-13 second seed Neel Joshi and girls' under-13 second seed Jannia Singh of Chandigarh were the other favourites who survived scares before advancing to the championship round.
Results (all from Maharashtra unless stated otherwise): U-9 (SF): 1-Vivaan Shah bt Siddhanth Rewari 11-1 11-3 11-2; 2-Yuvraj Wadhwani bt Aditya Chandani 11-4 11-1 11-9.
Boys U-11 (SF): 1-Aakash Gupta bt Jay Vaknalli 13-11 11-7 10-12 13-11; Jeh Pandole bt 2-Shreyas Mehta 11-7 11-8 11-7.

Girls U-11 (SF): 1-Aishwarya Khubchandani bt Archita Singh 11-4 11-4 11-1; 2-Yuvna Gupta bt Gigi Pandole 11-8 12-10 11-2.
Boys U-13 (SF): 1-Yash Fadte (Goa) bt Deepak Mandal 11-7 11-4 11-3; 2-Neel Joshi bt Advait Adik 9-11 9-11 11-6 11-5 11-7.

Girls U-13 (SF): 1-Megha Bhatia bt Anannya More 13-11 17-19 11-7 11-5; 2-Jannia Singh (Chd) bt Arya Ogle 13-11 11-4 12-10.
Boys U-15 (SF): 1-Chaitanya Shah bt Veer Chotrani 11-3 7-11 11-5 11-7; Tushar Shahani bt 2-Utkarsh Baheti (Raj) 5-11 11-5 11-5 11-8.
Girls U-15 (SF): 1-Aakanksha Rao bt Mira Kamat 11-3 11-9 11-2; 2-Diya Joukani bt Abhilasha Bhasin 11-8 11-3 11-9.
Boys U-17 (SF): 1-Abhay Singh (TN) bt Siddhant Iyer 13-11 9-11 11-8 19-17; Aryaman Adik bt 2-Sandeep Paswan 11-7 11-4 11-6.
Girls U-17 (SF): 1-Aishwarya Bhattacharya bt Ashita Bhengra (TN) 11-8 11-7 11-9; 2-Akanksha Salunkhe (Goa) bt Nikita Joshi 11-2 11-2 14-12.

Boys U-19 (SF): 1-Aishwarya Singh bt Aseem Mehra (Del) 11-5 11-4 14-12; Yohan Pandole bt Raghuvir Reddy 11-5 11-9 11-8.