Unheralded T Dinesh of Andhra Pradesh shocked tenth seeded Himanashu Takkar of Railways 15-8, 14-17, 15-9 in the second round of the 68th Senior National Badminton Championships, being held at the KVBR indoor stadium in Hyderabad on Monday.
Meanwhile, all other seeds including defending champion Abhinn Shyam Gupta, Chetan Anand, JBS Vidyadhar and Sachin Ratti easily sailed into the third round.
South paw Dinesh started with a bang, forcing his opponent on the back foot with deft placing, and took the first game with ease.
In the second, Takkar bounced back and matched Dinesh shot for shot to take the game with a hard fought 17-14 verdict.
In the decider, Dinesh lifted his game a few notches to demolish the tenth seed 15-9 and enter the third round.
It was the first upset in the championships.
Results: Men's singles (second round): Chetan Anand (Pet) bt Sanjay Das (WB) 15-1, 15-4; Manmeet Singh (Del) bt Abhijeet Dutta (Asm) 15-2, 15-12; Rutvparna Kulkarni (Mah) bt B Kiran Kumar (AP) 14-17, 15-13, 15-6; Utsav Prakash (Kar) bt S S Kannan (TN) 10-15, 15-11, 15-4; Hemanth Duggal (Rly) bt Rohit (Har) 15-3, 15-9; K S Srinivasan (AP) bt Uttam Chobey (MP) 15-7, 15-9; Nishad Dravid (Mah) bt Abhijeet Naimpally (BSB) 15-7, 15-6; J B S Vidyadhar (PET) bt Ashish Sharma (Chg) 16-17, 15-4, 15-4; Anuj Gupta (Guj) bt Amit Kulkarni (MP) 15-2, 15-11; T Dinesh (AP) bt Himanashu Takkar (Rly) 15-8, 14-17, 15-9; Rohan Castelino (Ktk) bt Joy T Antony (Ker) 15-12, 15-9; Utsav Mishra (UP) bt Harish Chandra (WB) 15-4, 15-1; Prashant Bajatre (Mah) bt Pankaj Naik (Goa) 16-17, 15-11, 15-4; Thomas Kurien (PET) bt Rudra Kaushik (Del) 15-1, 15-1; A Pridhvi (AP) BT Nimish Goel (Rly) 15-3, 15-8, B R Harish Kumar (Kar) bt Pallav Deka (ASM) 15-17, 15-3, 15-3; Arvind Bhat (PSPB) bt K R Shivkumar (TN) 15-4, 15-3; P Kashyap (AP) bt Tanvir Gill (Del) 15-11, 15-12; Nikhil Kanetkar (PET) bt Vivek Tatwandi (BSB) 15-3, 15-1; Jibi Verghese (Chn) bt Joseph Sumi (NAG) walk over; Sachini Ratti (Rly) bt S H Manoj (HP) 15-1, 15-0; Arup Baidya (Rly) bt Sagar Chopda (Mah) 15-11, 15-5; N Venkatesh (TN) bt V Diju (Ker) 15-4, 15-7; Anup Sridhar (Kar) bt Anirban Mukherjee (WB) 15-0, 15-1; Mayur Ghatnekar (Rlys) bt Vicky Jaiswal (MP) 17-15, 15-7; S D S Krishna (AP) bt Milin Parekh (Guj) 15-3, 15-6; Anup Mehrotra (UP) bt N Shiv Prakash (Kar) 15-7, 15-10; Abhinn Shyam Gupta (PET) Puneet Bansal (CHT) 15-1, 15-4.
Women's Doubles: Sarada Devi and Isha Sharma (Chg) bt Kamini and Poonam Patilal (HP) 15-2, 15-7; Deepthi Ranjan and Poonam Tiwari (Rly) bt Sampa Saha and Debashree Dey (WB) 15-5, 10-15, 15-8; Anitha and Meenu (Har) bt Prabinu Kabra and Rashmi Khedekar (MP) 15-4, 15-13; B Srilakshmi and Ashwani Choudary (AP) bt Sounya Padhe and Krithika (Raj) 15-3, 15-3; Dhanya Nair and Aditi Mutatkar (Mah) bt Uma Rani and Malvika Sarkhel (Jhar) 15-1, 15-0; Krishna Deka and Bibari Basumatary (Asm) bt Navitha Thakur and Simit Kalra (Pnb) 15-2, 15-3; V Jyothi Swarupa and P Jyotsna (AP) bt Pooja Pradeep and Varsha Upadhyay (Bhr) 15-1, 15-3; Leena Dhapre and Manju S George (LIC) bt Jyothi Sharma and Nisha Kalhotra (J&K) 15-0, 15-2; G M Nischitha and Varsha Belawdi (Kar) bt Chitraalekha and Vanshika Agarwal (Del) 15-4, 15-4; Merit George and Nimal Lakshmi (Ker) bt Richi Kapil and Gowri Choudary (UP) 15-5, 15-3.
