BWF World Junior C'ships: Unnati Hooda, S Sankar progress; top seed Anupama Upadhyaya bows out

Unnati Hooda and Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian prevailed in the singles categories matches on Wednesday at the ongoing BWF World Junior Championships in Santander, Spain as they qualified to the round of 16.

There was disappointment in the women’s singles event that saw top-seeded Anupama Upadhyaya go down against China’s Zhang Xin Ran 21-15, 21-10 in the round of 32 contest. Although Anupama came into the event as the top seed, China’s Zhang had some strong results in the mixed team event already and had shown that the seedings won’t matter much. It showed in the match, especially in the second game as the Indian was outplayed.

Unnati Hooda defeated Italy’s Gianna Stiglich 21-11, 21-7 to enter the round of 16 in the women’s singles event in the match that lasted 24 minutes on Wednesday. The 15-year-old was off to a good start in the round of 31 match, taking the first game 21-11.

She then came back with an even stronger show to take a comfortable win in the second game. The Indian is most likely to face Japan’s Hina Akechi in the next round.

Later in the day, the mixed doubles duo of Samarveer and Radhika Sharma bowed out of event after a defeat against Japan’s Seiya Inoue and Kokona Ishikawa. Although they had the lead in the second game and looked like could take it to the decider, it was the Japanese duo that prevailed 21-18, 21-16 in the game that lasted 32 minutes.

Meanwhile, fourth-seeded Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian was through to the men’s singles round of 16 with a comfortable 21-4, 21-5 win against Spain’s Basilio Porto. Sankar, who had missed the mixed team event, will next face Thailand’s Nachakorn Pusri.

Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj also suffered a straight games defeat against Korea’s Na Kyung PARK in the women’s singles round of 32 match. The Korean won the game 21-13, 21-13.

Later in the evening, Srinidhi Narayan/Shreya Balaji bowed out in women’s doubles after a three-game defeat againstt Emilie Drouin and Tea Margueritte. They gave the seventh seeds from France a run for their money, but eventually lost out 18-21, 21-16, 21-17.

Sankar and Unnati Hooda now hold India’s last hopes of a medal in the event.