Senior National Badminton Championships: Bharat defeats Lakshya, Tanvi upsets top seed Aakarshi in quarterfinals

Bharat Raghav of Haryana ended top-seed Lakshya Sen’s run in the men’s singles quarterfinals of the 85th Senior National Badminton Championships here on Friday, with an intensely fought 21-15, 10-21, 21-17 win in four minutes less than an hour and set up a clash with Telangana’s M. Tharun, the fourth seed.

Tharun has been the most consistent of the top players in the tournament so far. He was clinical in his triumph over Maharashtra’s Varun Kapoor, who retired in the second game after losing the first.

Railways’ Chirag Sen, Lakshya’s elder brother, has been a stand-out player in the Nationals. 
| Photo Credit:
RITU RAJ KONWAR/The Hindu

An hour or so earlier, 15-year-old Tanvi Sharma of Punjab played like a veteran to dispatch top-seeded Aakarshi Kashyap of Chhattisgarh in the women’s quarterfinals.

Playing in his first Senior Nationals and being a practice partner of Lakshya at the Prakash Padukone Academy in Bengaluru, Bharat put up a mature display, attacking and defending with aplomb. Lakshya was leading 10-7 and 11-8 in the third game. But Bharat fought back, defending well and using his jump smashes judiciously. From 11-each, Bharat held the upper-hand and once he took to a 17-13 lead, he appeared confident and went after Petroleum’s top seed.

“I have been training in PPA for the last two years. In fact, I play matches with Lakshya and train with Mithun and others. It is a great victory,” Bharat told Sportstar.

Trained by her mother Meena Sharma in Hoshiarpur, the teenager put forth a fantastic exhibition of inch-perfect drops and good backcourt play to outwit the top seed in all manner possible. 

Railways’ Chirag Sen, Lakshya’s elder brother, has been a stand-out player in the Nationals. He has displayed fighting qualities. His confidence has risen after the triumph over the third seed Kartikey Gulshan Kumar in the second round on Thursday. It was evident in the manner of his victory over Arya Bhivpathaki in the quarterfinals. Chirag will take on second seed Kiran George of RBI in the semifinals. Kiran scripted a comfortable win over M. Mithun of Railways 21-12, 21-13.