India’s biggest medal hopes at the badminton world junior championships – fourth seed Lakshya Sen and fifth seeded doubles pair Dhruv Kapila/Krishna Prasad Garaga – recorded facile wins in their opening matches of the individual event in Markham, Canada, on Tuesday.
Eighth seed Purva Barve, Priyanshu Rajawat, Alap Mishra and Kiran George also reached the third round after straight-game wins, as did the doubles pairs Sahithi Bandi/Thanushree Ramesh, Manjit Singh/Dingku Singh and Vishnu Vardhan Goud Panjala/Srikrishna Sai Kumar Podile.
The women’s doubles pair of Aditi Bhatt and Tanisha Crasto were the only Indians who needed three games to win, as they defeated Hong Kong’s Leung Yuet Yee/Saloni Mehta 21-15, 13-21, 21-12.
However, it was curtains for the 15-year-old Gayatri Gopichand, who lost to China’s Han Quainxi 21-15, 11-21, 19-21. The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Bhat and Srishti Jupudi were the only other Indians to lose on Tuesday, after they retired in the second game against China’s Chen Yingxue and Li Yijing. The Indian pair was trailing 16-21, 1-6 when they called it quits.
Barve then got India’s first win of the day, defeating Thailand’s Pornpicha Choeikeewong 21-17, 21-14. Rajawat then beat 15th seed Jia Wei Joel Koh of Indonesia 21-18, 21-8, before Sen eased past Mexico’s Armando Gaitan 21-13, 21-9 in 24 minutes.
Alap Mishra then beat Denmark’s Magnus Johannesen 21-19, 21-19, before Kiran George defeated Slovakia’s Andrej Antoska 21-18, 21-14.
Dhruv and Krishna had no trouble against the local pair of Andrew Choi and Victor Lu, beating them 21-8, 21-9. Manjit and Dingku also hardly broke a sweat against Antoska and his compatriot Jakub Horak, winning 21-14, 21-8.