Unseeded Nikita Joshi stunned fourth seed Jui Kalgutkar to enter the girls' under-17 semi-finals of the 39th Bombay Gymkhana Maharashtra State Open Junior Squash Championship here today.
Nikita won the all-Maharashtra quarter-final tie 11-6 11-9 11-13 11-9 to set up a clash with second seed Akanksha Salunkhe of Goa in the tournament sponsored by Mahindra Lifespaces.
Akanksha halted Aditi Prasad, also of Maharashtra, 11-2 11-4 11-5.
Third seed Ashita Bhengra of Tamil Nadu will be up against top seed Aishwarya Bhattacharya of Maharashtra in the other semi-final.
Boys' under-19 second seed Puneet Pareek of Maharashtra and MP lads Sarthak Tongia and Mradul Agrawal, both seeded in the fifth to eighth slot, crashed in heap in the pre-quarter-finals.
Nikita enjoyed a commanding 2-0 lead when Jui staged a brilliant recovery from 7-10 to snatch the third game with a slew of impressive boasts.
Jui staged another recovery in the fourth game as she surged to a 7-4 advantage from 2-4 to raise hopes of stretching the tie into the decider. But Nikita won four points in a row for 8-7 and never looked back, as Jui slipped into errors that cost her the match.
The results (all from Maharashtra unless stated otherwise): Girls U-13 (Pre quarter finals): 1-Megha Bhatia bt Yoshna Singh 11-3 11-4 11-7; Miraya Gupta bt Anjali Semwat 11-8 11-3 11-8; Anannya More bt Sunita Patel 11-3 11-8 11-4; Ananya Dabke bt Sarah Vethekar 11-2 11-2 11-6; Arya Ogle bt Rewa Bharma 11-1 11-3 11-0; Darshana Vasudevan (TN) bt Mona Chauhan 11-1 11-2 11-1; 2-Jannia Singh (Chd) bt Amira Singh (Del) 11-9 11-3 11-1.
