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ShareMandya: Top seed Sumeeth Reddy of Andhra Pradesh and Air India's HS Prannoy marched into the semifinals of the Junior National badminton championships here on Saturday. Prannoy got the better of Bangalore boy Prakash Jolly while Sumeeth outplayed NVS Vijetha in the quarterfinals.
Prakash Jolly was messy against third seed Prannoy, losing in straight games. Andhra Pradesh, as expected, has dominated the championships thus far, sending two of the four semifinalists in the boys' and girls' singles.
Sumeeth and PC Thulasi (Ker) progressed to the semis in contrasting fashions -- Sumeeth having to stave off a first-set deficit and a doughty opponent in NVS Vijetha. Among the more exciting matches of the day was Kerala's Daya Elsa, who fought back from a difficult position against Rituparna Das of Bengal.
Daya was 13-17 down in the third against an opponent who is perhaps the most graceful on view in her category. Rituparna moves fluidly and has some beautiful strokes; with a healthy lead in the third game it should have been her match.
But Elsa played steadily when it mattered most, and saved two match points from 18-20. Both were combative from 20-all, and Elsa finally managed to edge past 24-22 when she judged a toss that fell a few millimetres outside the baseline.
Quarterfinal results : Boys singles: 3-H S Prannoy (AI) bt 5-Prakash Jolly (Kar) 21-16 21-16; 1-B Sumeet Reddy (AP) bt NVS Vijetha (AP) 14-21 21-14 21-17; 2-Sai Praneeth (AP) bt 8-Akshit Mahajan (AI) 21-8 21-13; 4-K Nandagopal (Rly) bt 10-Sameer Verma (MP) 21-11 21-17; Girls singles: 11- Daya Elsa Jacob (Ker) bt Rituparna Das (WB) 21-15 13-21 24-22; 4-PV Sindhu (AP) bt 7-Vaishali Baria (AI) 21-19 21-11; 1-PC Thulasi (Ker) bt 5-Saili Rane (AI) 21-14 21-10; 2-N Sikki Redd
