Maisnam win, Gayatri lose in Asia Junior C'ship

Maisnam Meiraba Luwang entered the second round of under-17 men's singles but it was curtains for Gayatri Gopichand at the Asia Junior Championship here today.
Manipur's Maisnam, who won the Under-17 singles' title at the 16th Union Bank All India Junior Ranking Badminton Tournament in Bangalore last June, outwitted Malaysia's Shun Yang Lee 21-10 21-13 in the first round of U-17 men's singles.
Gayatri, however, had a bad day in office as she suffered two narrow defeats in the opening round of under-15 and under-17 women's singles.
She lost to lost 22-24 21-14 15-21 to Indonesia's Widjaja Stephani in under 15, before going down to Indonesia's Yasnita Enggira Setiawan 20-22 21-18 13-21 in under 17 later in the day.

Among others, Amit Rathore defeated Macau's Hou In Lam 21-11 21-13, Aakash Yadav beat Vietnam's Anh Gia Huy Nguyen 21-15 21-16, while Sathish Kumar Karunakaran overcame Vietnam's Duy Canh Hua 17-21 21-12 21-13 in the opening round of U-17 men's singles.
In under-15 women's singles, Aashi Rawat beat Sri Lanka's Suwani Muthumalee 21-16 21-8, Sneha Rajwar defeated Chinese Taipei's Chao Ting-Yu 21-17 21-15. However, Malaysian Shi Yun Hoe ended Kriti Bharadwaj's stay with a 21-13 14-21 22-20 win.

In U-15 men's singles, second seed Varun Kapur and fourth seed Vikas Yadav got byes in the opening round, while Siddhanth Gupta, Ayush Raj Gupta, Jayant Rana and Punshiba Yengkhom also crossed the opening hurdle.

Siddhanth outplayed Chinese Taipei's Wei Zheng-Chen 21-19 21-16, Ayush outclassed local shuttler Moe Thaw Htin 21-3 21- 5, Jayant saw off Vietnam's The Lam Son Nguyen 21-13 21-12 and Punshiba overpowered Jason Gunawan 15-21 21-15 21-17 in another match.
It was curtains for Dhruv Rawat and Iman Sonowal in under 17 men's singles, while Unnati Bisht and Samiya Imad Farooqui also bowed out in under 17 women's singles.