Youngsters Siril Verma and Harsheel Dani overcame a three-hour administrative delay due to the opening ceremony and tricky opponents to qualify for the main draw of the Syed Modi International badminton tournament in Lucknow on Tuesday.
The men’s singles second round qualifying matches were earlier scheduled for 3 PM but were shifted to 6 PM as the inauguration ceremony had to be held between 4 to 5 pm. While the players would have preferred the additional rest between the two rounds, the information about the change in schedule was informed to them just a couple of hours before their matches.
However, Verma and Dani managed to turn around slow starts to beat their respective opponents rather comfortably. Verma, the 2015 junior world championship silver medallist, defeated Kevin Arokia Walter 21-16, 21-13 to set up a first round clash against third seed Sameer Verma.
On the adjacent court, Dani saved six game points in the first game against Thailand’s Kantawat Leelavechabutr and stitched together a series of nine consecutive points to win 22-20, 21-11 in just 37 minutes. He will now face another Mumbai boy Ajay Jayaram in the opening round.
Bodith Joshi would, however, feel unlucky as he made a couple of unforced errors at the business end of the deciding game to lose 21-18, 13-21, 21-18 against Jia Wei Tan of Malaysia. The last qualifying spot went to Vicky Angga Saputra of Indonesia who defeated Pratul Joshi 21-14, 21-10.
In the women’s singles event, Amolika Singh Sisodiya, Ritika Thaker, M Tanishq and Shruti Mundada made it to the main draw.
Results of qualification rounds:
Men’s singles:
Women’s singles:
Doubles results:
