Tanvi takes Okuhara scalp, Prannoy ousted

Lucknow: World Junior Championships silver medallist Tanvi Sharma and Manraj Singh created a flutter at the Syed Modi International, stunning the former world champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan and HS Prannoy respectively to enter the quarterfinals here on Thursday.

The 16-year-old Tanvi, who had reached the US Open Super 300 final earlier this year, notched a morale-boosting 13-21 21-16 21-19 win over second seed Okuhara in a 59-minute thriller.

Manraj, 19, then delivered a sensational performance to oust Prannoy, the 2023 World Championships bronze medallist, 21-15 21-18 in just 43 minutes, sending shockwaves through the men’s singles draw.

Top seed Unnati Hooda too booked her place in the last-eight with a commanding 21-15 21-10 win over Tasnim Mir, while Mithun Manjunath outlasted sixth seed Tharun Mannepalli 21-16 17-21 21-17 in another all-Indian second-round contest.

Unnati will face seventh seed Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj, who edged past Devika Sihag 16-21 21-19 21-17, while Mithun is set to take on Manraj, who had won Uganda International Challenge and Iran Fajr International Challenge early this year, in the quarterfinals.

Former world No.1 Kidambi Srikanth brushed aside Saneeth Dayanand 21-6 21-16 to set up a quarterfinal clash with a fit-again Priyanshu Rajawat, who overcame BM Rahul Bharadwaj 21-16 10-21 21-12 in a hard-fought encounter.

Kiran George, Alap Mishra and Siddharth Gupta, however, bowed out after losing their respective second-round matches.

In women’s singles, Isharani Baruah shocked sixth seed Polina Buhrova 21-15 21-8 to move into the quarterfinals, where she will face Turkey’s fourth seed Neslihan Arın. Tanya Hemanth and Anupama Upadhyaya, however, exited after

second-round defeats.