Top seed Banthia shocked by qualifier Nikit Reddy

Top seed Siddhant Banthia of host state Maharashtra was toppled by qualifier Nikit Reddy in straight sets in the first round of the MSLTA-Yonex Sunrise Ramesh Desai Memorial under-16 nationals, here today.
Reddy, from Telengana, scored a fluent 6-4 6-2 win to oust the off-colour Banthia and enter round two along with Rahul Shankar of Tamil Nadu who caused the second upset of the day by knocking out 16th seed Utkarsh Hhardwaj of Uttarakhand 7-5 6-3.
In other close matches, Maharashtra lad Atharva Sharma came back from being a set down to score a 2-6 6-4 6-3 win over Sathya Maran of Tamil Nadu.

Maharashtra girls Ashwagandha Parade, Kritika Chabbra, Sanya Singh and Pareen Shivekar also made it to round two in the girls' section.
The results:
Boys (1st round) Nikit Reddy bt 1-Siddhant Banthia 6-4 6-2; Arnav Bhardwaj bt Sagar Sehrawat 6-3 6-4; 9-Megh Bhargav Kumar Patel bt Abhimanyu Vannem Reddy 6-4 6-4; 7-Sivadeep Kosaraju bt Dev Javia 6-2 6-0; 3-Parikshit Somani bt Chaitanya Dev Chauhan 6-2 6-1; Atharva Sharma bt Sathya Maran 2-6 6-4 6-3; 10-M Aadithya bt Kaivalya Kalamse 3-6 7-5 6-0; 8-Suresh Dhakshineswar bt Siddharth Thakran 6-2 6-4; Kunj Kotak bt Sahishnu Sharma 6-1 6-2; Rahul Shankar bt 16-Utkarsh Bhardwaj 7-5 6-3; 6-Sumit Pal Singh bt Nitin Gunduboina 6-3 6-0

Girls (1st round): Dharana Mudaliar bt Radhika Yadav 6-2 6-4; Ashwgandha Parade bt S B Apoorva 6-3 7-5; Smriti Singh bt Ishwari Matere 6-1 6-4; Aarja Chakraborty bt Shrishti Ray 6-1 6-0; Shrivalli Rashmikaa bt Sivanuja Peddada 6-2 6-2; Shivani Sravya bt Neha Mokashi 6-4 4-6 6-4; Sanya Singh bt Aditi Baskar 6-4 6-2; Pareen Shivekar bt Bhargavi Kalaga 6-0 retired; G S Vasavi bt Baani Singh 6-4 6-2; Shreya Gulia bt Aesha Patel 4-6 6-3 6-1; Maanya Viswanath bt Bbhirami Prakasan 6-4 6-4; Urmi Pandya bt Bhakti Parwani 6-3 6-4; Anjum Shaikh bt Ishita Parikh 6-3 6-3; Prathiba Prasad bt Rachana Reddy 6-4 6-2; Tanisha Kashyap bt Sonashe Bhatnagar 2-6 6-3 6-3; Kritika Chhabra bt Megha Muthukumaran 6-1 6-2.