Sixteenth seed Raghav Jaisinghani pulled off a major surprise when he knocked out top seed and India number four B R Nikshep to enter the quarterfinals of the under-16 boys singles in the 7th Ramesh Desai All India ranking tennis tournament today.
Jaisinghani from Madhya Pradesh, who is ranked 24th in the country, showed plenty of grit and determination as he carved out a 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 victory. He will next meet sixth seed Indra Patwardhan of Mahrashtra in the quarter-final.
Patwardhan defeated 9th seed Sanil Jagtiani of West Bengal 6-3, 6-1.
Also through to the quarter finals were number two seed Dhruv Pal of Uttaranchal, number three Paramveer Singh of Punjab, number four Alex Solanki of Delhi, number five Udayan Bhakar of Rajasthan, number seven Suresh Gokul of Tamil Nadu and number eight Vinod Vashisht of Karnataka.
In the girls' competition, second seed Vanshikha Sawhney of Delhi suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Chandigarh's 13th seed Nandini Sharma in a girl's under-16 singles last 16 encounter. Nandini won 7-6 (1), 6-4.
Top seed Akshara Iska of Andhra Pradesh also stormed into the quarterfinals along with unseeded Jennifer Luikham of Haryana, number three Karman Kaur of Delhi, number 11 Ramaya Natarajan of TN, number seven 7 Zeel Desai of Gujarat, number four Himani Mor of Haryana and number six Mihika Yadav of Haryana.
