Tarun & and Santosh of Andhra beat MP pair at badminton meet

Tarun K and Santosh Ravuri of Andhra Pradesh defeated Prabhat Sirsat and Anurag Thakkar of Madhya Pradesh in the first round of doubles event at the 79th Senior National Badminton Championship here today.
The Andhra Pradesh duo won 21-16 21-15 at DRRMC Indoor Stadium here.
In another encounter, Bennet Antony and Pranav S of Kerala overcame the challenge of Assam's Ranjan Buragohain and Anshuman Hazarika 21-8 21-13.
Venkatesh B and Chaitanya Reddy K of Andhra Pradesh trounced Surender Rathee and Neeraj Vashisth of Haryana 23-21 21-16.
Earlier, N Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, formally inaugurated the championship. Naidu declared the opening of the meet at a grand function attended by legendary shuttler Pullela Gopichand and All-Indian Badminton Association Secretary (Tournment) K Punnaiah Chowdary.

The qualifying rounds of the tournament were held on January 29 and 30, while inter-state matches took place on January 31 and February 1. The main draw of the Rs 10 lakh prize money event started today and the final will be played on February 5.
Some of the results: Ravinder Singh and Vinay Kumar Singh (UP) bt J Trinadh and Pradeesh M (AP) 21-10 21-9; Kabir Kanzarkar and Akshay Raut (MAH), bt Ankit Arora and Rajat Rathore (Rajasthan) 21-12 21-18; Mohamed Rehan R and Velavan V (TN) bt Arup Baidya and Ratikanta Saha (WB) 21-11 21-5; Abhidnya Sawant and Prasad Shetty (MAH) bt Harinder Malik and Satinder Malik (HAR) 24-26 21-14 21-14; Manikandan M R and Karan Rajan (TN) bt Chandrajit Jha and Akram Safi (JAR), 21-10 21-6; Krishna Prasad G and Satwik Sai Raj R (AP) bt Kapil Chaudhry and Chandrabhushan Tripathi (UP) 21-13 21-9; Mayank Behal and Anand Tiwari (Punjab), bt Samuel L N Mawia Hamar and Lalduhawma Renthlei (Mizoram) 21-15 21-13; Midhilesh and Suraj P H (KER) bt Shubham Kumar and Kumar Shubham (Bihar) 21-17 21-13.