Top seeds Pooja and Pankaj toppled

Chandigarh, Jan 30 (UNI) Favourites and top-seeds Pooja A Narayana of Delhi and Pankaj Kumar of Chandigarh were toppled in the girls under-16 and boys under-14 quarter-final matches, respectively, in the AITA Championship Series being played at Lake Sports Complex here today.

With AITA 144.75 points and ranked 49th Pooja Narayana was stunned by 104th ranked with 47.5 AITA points Eetee Mehta of Gujarat in the girls under-16 quarter-final encounter in straight sets 6-4, 6-2. Eetee Mehta, who is seeded second in the girls under-14 singles, also advanced to the semi-final at the expense of Bhavika Wadhawan of Chandigarh 6-2, 6-2.

Unseeded Ravnoor Kaur, an eighth class student of Sacred Heart School, continued to maintain her form as she ended the challenge of eighth seed Jaspreet Kaur of Punjab in straight sets 6-4, 6-4 in the girls Under-16 quarter-final match.

The semi-final line-up in the girls under-16 is: Eetee Mehta vs Harnoor Kaur Mann and Ravnoor Kaur vs Baljinder Kaur.

Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association trainee and top seed Pankaj Kumar, ranked 61st with 82 AITA points was upset by unseeded Sunny Dahiya of Haryana, seeded 118th with 27.25 AITA points, in the boys under-14 quarter-final encounter. Both players traded stroke for stroke. Pankaj won the first set at 6-4. Sunny raised his game and managed to pip his rival in tie-breaker at 7-5 to claim the second set at 7-6 and made it one-all. In the third and deciding set, Sunny stunned his rival as he raced to a 6-2 win and earn a place in semi-final.

Sunny will now face third seed Digvijay Naruka of Chandigarh in semi-final. Down by first set, Naruka rallied to oust unseeded A Nikhit Prasad of Andhra Pradesh by 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-0.

From the lower half, second seed Kamal Kishore Maderana of Rajasthan and fourth seed and qualifier Vilash Khate of National Tennis Academy moved into semi-final. Kamal struggled to overcome sixth seed and qualifier Sushanti Mohanti 6-1, 2-6, 7-6 (4) while Vilash ousted eighth seed Manish Kumar of Delhi in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.

Semi-finalists in the boys under-16 and girls under-14 have also been spotted. In the boys Under-16 quarter-finals, topseeded Navneet Kumar beat Rishab Dev 6-2, 6-4; Naveen Shanker ousted Pankaj Kumar 6-1, 6-2; Gurinder Singh eliminated Ajay Yadav 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 and second seed Maninder Singh downed Digvijay Singh Naruka.

In the girls under-14 semi-finals, topseed Likhita Shetty will face Rimpaldeep Kaur while Eetee Mehta will face Simran K Sethi.

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