Bhubaneswar: Promising Odisha shuttler Swetaparna Panda inched closer to her maiden national title by entering U-15 mixed doubles final of the Yonex-Sunrise 33rd National Sub-junior Badminton Championship at the East Coast Railway Indoor Stadium here today.
Dominating their semifinal match from beginning to end against fourth seeds Haryana pair of Mayank Rana and Unnati Hooda, top seeded Swetaparna and partner Sathwik Reddy K of Telangana won 21-17, 21-13.
In the title clash, Swetaparna and Sathwik till cross swords against third-seeded Chandigarh-Haryana combination of Samarveer and Rijil Saini tomorrow. Samarveer and Rijul won their last-four contest against Haryana pair of Sunny Nehra and Muskan Sangwan 21-12, 21-14.
Odisha tasted another success in the day as Ayush Pattnayak advanced to the U-17 boys’ doubles semifinals with Suhas V of Karnataka as his partner. They fought back from a game down to beat Telangana-Assam combination of Uneeth Krishna BV and Ayan Rashid 18-21, 21-8, 21-19. Ayush and Suhas, seeded second, will meet Kerala duo of Arryan Aji R and Abrar Muhammadu in the semifinals later today.
Meanwhile, Tara Saha (Maharashtra) and Mansi Singh (UP) set up the U-17 girls’ singles final match with contrasting wins. In the semifinals, top seed Mansi faced stiff fight against eighth seed Vijetha Harish (Karnataka) before winning 21-8, 18-21, 21-13, while 14th seed Tara eliminated seventh seed Taneesha Singh (UP) 21-13, 21-19.
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