Soni, Thyagrajan recover to advance

Aaroh Soni of Maharashtra fought hard to overcome Karnataka's Ravi Madabhushi in four games and enter the men's singles round two of the 4th NSCI All India Open Squash Tournament on Saturday.

Soni pulled off a 6-11, 18-16, 11-4, 11-4 win in a men's first round match at the NSCI courts.

Also through to round two was another Maharashtra player, Abhinav Thyagarajan.

He also rallied from the loss of the first game to sideline state rival Divit Poojary 8-11, 11-5, 11-5, 11-7.

Maharashtra's Agastya Bansal, who recently clinched the boys' under-11 crown in the Southern Slam Junior tournament in Chennai, continued with his impressive form to defeat Harshman Saharia 11-4, 11-4, 11-2 in a boys' U-11 second round encounter.

Subhash Choudhary, who is the top seed, warmed up nicely by taming Maharashtra's Vivan Rajpuria 11-0, 11-0, 11-1 in a second round encounter in the same group.

Savir Sood and Hridhaan Shah, both from Maharashtra, were locked in a grim battle before the former scraoed through to a 7-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-4 victory and advance to the third round.

Abhiraj Singh of Uttar Pradesh lost the first game but made a good recovery and won the next three games to get past Maharashtras Mitansh Jain in a boys' under-13 first round match. The UP lad won 9-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-9.

In another match, Maharashtra's Nikhil Pande fought back to defeat Sahir Sethi of Delhi 9-11, 11-9, 11-5, 11-6.

Vedant Chheda of Maharashtra proved too strong for compatriot Krishnav Bubna, coasting to a fluent 11-0, 11-1, 11-3 victory, in another first round match.