All India Sub-Junior Ranking Badminton: Hard-fought victory for Rajasthan’s Utkarsh Singh Rathod; Devashish Prajapat, Harshvardhan, Kandarp Sharma move up

Jaipur: Utkarsh Singh Rathod of Rajasthan entered the third round of the Yonex-Sunrise All India Sub-Junior (U-15 & U-17) Ranking Badminton tournament being held at the Sawai Mansingh Indoor Stadium here on Thursday.Utkarsh posted a hard-fought 15-7, 11-15, 15-11 win over Sudeep Kumar of Jharkhand in a 40-minute clash of the U-15 boys singles.In the U-17 boys category, Devashish Prajapat edged out Lakshya Chaudhary of Delhi 15-10, 10-15, 15-9 in three games. Harshvardhan of Rajasthan had little trouble in ousting Bharat Krishna of Haryana 15-5, 15-7. Nishit Agarwal got a walkover from Furhan Sayyed of Karnataka.Kandarp Sharma outclassed Arif Mohammad of Kerala 15-10, 15-9, Jatin rallied to down Telangana's Nikhil Verma 10-15, 15-5, 15-12, Rudra Devanda defeated Abhyansh Jain of Madhya Pradesh 15-5, 17-15, Manas Gehlot defeated Vihaan Pratham of Telangana 10-15, 17-15, 15-13, Garvit Barwar defeated Vihaan Reddy of Telangana 15-3, 15-5, Divyansh Tomar defeated Aryan of Haryana 10-15, 15-11, 15-11, Mayank Swami defeated Sakad Dubey of Madhya Pradesh 15-11, 15-12, Bhavya Bansal defeated Moksh Bhatia of Haryana 16-18, 15-5, 15-12, Madhav Sharma defeated Himanshu of Haryana 15-7, 15-1, Akshat Shekhawat defeated Kshitij Kushwaha of Uttarakhand 15-6, 15-7, Manvendra Choudhary defeated K. Selvanathan of Tamil Nadu and entered the next round.According to Manoj Dasot, vice president of the Rajasthan Badminton Association, there will be 450 matches, starting at 9 am on Friday.In the Under-17 mixed doubles, the pair of Garvit Barwar and Deshna Jain from Rajasthan defeated the pair of Kartik and Sushma from Andhra Pradesh by 15-2, 15-8. In the Under-15 mixed doubles, the pair of Shreyansh Choudhary and Padmaja Singh defeated the pair of Viraj Singh and Kanishka Singh from Haryana by 15-5, 15-6, the pair of Lokesh Gurjar and Miraya Fageria defeated the pair of Prithvi Janwad and Dhani from Maharashtra by 15-7, 15-13, and the pair of Y Shekhawat and K Sharma defeated the pair of Sushagar and Arnavi Pathak from Uttar Pradesh by 16-14, 15-9.