Mrunmayi, Kunal, Pranav move up in Senior State Badminton

NAGPUR: City shuttlers got off to a brilliant start in the second Maharashtra Senior State Selection Badminton tournament which commenced at the Goregaon Sports Club in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Mrunmayi Saoji overcame a rusty start to down Aarya Deshpande 21-17, 21-13 in the women's singles first round. Mrunmayi, who had to concede in the quarterfinal against Pune's Revati Devasthale in the last tournament at Aurangabad, defeated Satara's Aarya in 27 minutes.
Eighteen-year-old Mrunamyi will now take on Pranjal Kulkarni of Pune in the second round on Thursday.
In the men's singles, Kunal Dasarwar and Pranav Lokhande won their respective second round encounters quite easily. While Kunal ousted Mumbai Suburban's Shrinath Gopalakrishnan 21-7, 21-5, Pranav prevailed over local player Shubham Lakhane 21-10, 21-13.
Meanwhile, Hislop College won the inter-college badminton tournament, organized by the District Sports Office, here at the Divisional Sports Complex, Mankapaur.
In a one-sided final, Hislop College trounced Shivaji Science College 2-0. In the first singles, Hislop’s Samarjit Panday defeated Nihkil Sadhwani 21-15, 21-5 to provide a flying start to his team. The score was made 2-0 as Gaurav Mithe and Divij Shah thumped Nihkil and Shreyas 23-21, 21-17 to clinch the title.
The champion team of Hislop College consisted of Samarjit Panday, Gaurav Mithe, Divij Shah, Siddharth Roy and Sankalp Ramteke. Hislop College will now participate in the Divisional tournament likely to be held in the second week of September. The principal of the college Dipti Christian congratulated the players and wished them luck for the divisional matches.