Seeded players take a beating at state meet

AHMEDABAD: It was a day full of upsets where unseeded players basked in the glory and showed the door to many seeded players at the quarterfinal stages of the ongoing Fourth Gujarat State Sub-Junior Badminton Tournament being held at IFFCO Kasturinagar in Kalol.
First to take the beating was in the under-13 boys' singles. Vadodara's unseeded Vivek Verma stunned second-seeded Aryansh Chokshi of Ahmedabad 21-10, 21-13 to book his semifinal berth.The surprised semifinalist was leading in both the games and in the end had it easy straight games win.
Third seed Krish Vinod followed citymate Aryansh on the way out after he was handed a 17-21, 13-21 loss by yet another unseeded player Jeet Patel.
Another unseeded player to impress was Jay Rajyaguru of Mehsana. He had to fight hard to beat fourth-seeded Bornabh Gogoi of Gandhinagar 23-25, 21-14, 21-7 in the pre-quarters. Despite being drained after the pre-quarters, he went on to beat Dravya Chokshi of Vadodara 21-14, 22-20 in the quarters and booked his semifinal berth.
In the under-15 boys' doubles, unseeded duo Dhruv Raval and Sujalsinh Baria of Vadodara overcame the fourth-seeded pairing of Anand Makwana of Vadodara and Kalp Patel of Mehsana 21-14, 17-21, 21-19 to march into the semi-final.
Elsewhere, Ahmedabad’s shuttler Archi Kumar beat eighth-seed Manya Thacker of Kutch 21-17, 27-25 in the under-13 girls' singles quarter-final while Saishwari Sahasrabuddhe of Vadodara came from a set down to defeat Urdhvina Khadse of Navsari by 16-21, 21-10,2116.