Kanetkar survives Saxena gets second shot at Anand

MUMBAI, JANUARY 6: Any other player and Sushant Saxena (UP) would have made the semi-finals. But as it happenned, his opponent, the countr...

MUMBAI, JANUARY 6: Any other player and Sushant Saxena (UP) would have made the semi-finals. But as it happenned, his opponent, the country’s third-best ranked player, found that extra bit in himself to move into the last-four stage of the Rs 4 lakh NSCI All-India Grand Prix badminton on Thursday.

Nikhil Kanetkar, fresh from success in Europe and a final appearance at the US Open, found the going tough at home. His 12-15, 15-9, 15-12 win in an hour and 16 minutes marked what has been a disappointing week for the second seed. After conceding his semi-final match at Pune a few days back, Kanetkar looked in trouble as Saxena made light of a 6-13 deficit in the final game by grabbing the next five points.

Things looked bad for the Pune-bred in the opening game itself as he stared at a 6-14 setback. Though Kanetkar crawled to a 12-14 recovery, Saxena was not to be denied.

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It was only after 10 points had been played in the second game that Kanetkar could take lead for the first time in the match. And badstart continued to plague him as he trailed 0-3 in the decider before the final result could give him some satisfaction that his sluggish start could not.

He now faces Chetan Anand, who toyed with Siddharth Jain before joining top seed Abhinn Shyam Gupta and No 4 Ajit Wijetilak in the semi-finals. In the quarters, Wijetilek downed Anuj Gupta (Guj), who had upset No 5 seed Sachin Ratti in the pre-quarters.

Results

Men’s singles (QF): Abhinn Shyam Gupta (PSCB) bt Abhishek Bakshi (A-I) 15-3, 15-9; Ajit Wijetilak (PSCB) bt Anuj Gupta (Guj) 15-3, 15-9; Nikhil Kanetkar (PSCB) bt Sushant Saxena (UP) 12-15, 15-9, 15-12; Chetan Anand (A-I) bt Siddharth Jain (PSCB) 15-8, 15-3.

Second round: Abhinn Shyam Gupta bt Hemant Duggal (Del) 15-4, 15-5; Ajit Wijetilak bt P Gehlawat (Del) 15-9, 15-3; Chetan Anand bt Devinder Dhillon (Del) 15-8, 15-4; Srikant Bakshi bt Sushant Saxena (UP) 15-0, 15-6; Abhishek Bakshi bt Thomas Kurien (Rly) 15-6, 15-8; Anuj Gupta bt Sachin Ratti (Rly) 15-7, 15-13; SiddharthJain (PSCB) bt Amrish Shinde (Rly) 15-6, 15-3; Nikhil Kanetkar (PSCB) bt K A Anish (Ker) 15-3, 15-5.

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Doubles (1st round): Rajeev Bagga/ Vinod Kumar bt V Diju/ S Thomas 15-11, 11-15, 15-12; George Thomas/ Ajay Kanwar bt Jason Xavier/ Deepak Amarnath 15-12, 15-10; Amrish Shinde/ Mayur Ghatnekar bt Devinder Dhillon/ P Gehlawat 15-11, 15-13; Ajit Wijetilak/ J George bt B Bohra/ Sanket Shetty 15-13, 15-11; Mitesh Hazarnis/ JBS Vidyadhar bt KA Anish/ JT Anthony 15-11, 15-12; Marcos Bristow/ Vijaydeep Singh bt G Kiran/ Guruprasad 15-9, 15-3.

Women’s singles (2nd round): B R Meenakshi (Rly) bt Krupa Telang (Mah) 7-11, 11-5, 11-6; Ch Deepthi (AP) bt Nupura Bhide (Mah) 12-10, 11-1.

Doubles (first round): Ketaki Thakkar/ Trupti Murgunde bt D Shweta/ Glory Xavier 15-1, 15-13; Manjusha Kanwar/ Archana Deodhar bt Swati Moghe/ P Nagauri 15-9, 15-7; BR Meenakshi/ T Begum bt Pooja Patil/ Aditi Biswas 15-2, 15-4; Divya Ramesh/ P Priyadarshini bt Neha Gangolli/ Gauri Narayan 15-7, 15-12; V Shetty/ NKarimi bt Sim Sim Salaria/ Nupura Bhide 15-13, 15-13.

Mixed doubles (first round): JBS Vidyadhar/ G Jwala bt Vinod Kumar/ BR Meenakshi 15-7, 15-4; Jaseel P Ismail/ Manjusha Kanwar bt Mitesh Hazarnis/ Ketaki Thakkar 15-8, 15-12; Marcos Bristow/ Madhumita Bisht bt B Bohra/ Oli Deka 15-9, 15-5; Vincent Lobo/ Archana Deodhar bt Kunal Vaswani/ Varsha Shah 15-9, 15-2.