IN RED-HOT form, city’s Rohan Gurbani accounted for top seed Arya Bhivpathaki to move into men’s singles semi-finals of the Yonex Sunrise Late Nandu Natekar Memorial Maharashtra Senior Inter-District and State Badminton Championship under way at Divisional Sports Complex, Koradi Road, Mankapur, on Wednesday. Along with Rohan, the women’s doubles pairs of Ritika Thaker-Simran Singhi and Nikkita Joseph-Sonali Mirkhelkar moved into the last four.

 

Rohan outsmarted his better-rated rival from Pune 21-19, 21-14 in 38 minutes. In the pre-quarters earlier in the day, Rohan defeated Abhishek Kulkarni 21-14, 21-11. In the women’s doubles quarters, Ritika-Simran got the better of Manya Avlani and Shruti Bhoir 21-10, 21-10 in straight games while Nikkita and her Aurangabad partner Sonali, seeded second, walked into the semis with city duo of Ananya Durugkar and Nehal Gosavi conceding the match.

 

In the Round of 16, Ritika-Simran beat Aditi Kale and Asmita Shedge 21-8, 21-12 while Nikkita-Sonali defeated Gargee Degvekar and Niharika Maurya 21-15, 21-13. Nagpur’s Nishika Gokhe lost her women’s singles quarter-final match to Aalisha Naik going down 21-12, 21-16. She won her PQF match in the morning session defeating Rhucha Sawant in three close games in a thrilling match. She won 18-21, 21-19, 23-21. The competition is being organised by Nagpur District Badminton Association. MLA Vikas Thakre, WCL, MOIL and Meditirina Institute of Medical Sciences are supporting the event.