Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, June 8:

The second day of the Nepal Asian Satellite Badminton Championshiop 2005 was a mixed bag for Nepal, as the local shuttlers ended up with just three wins, with one match defaulted.

Saradevi Tamang entered the women’s singles quarter-finals, while the duo Pashupati Paneru and Pankaj Chand made it to the semi-finals in men’s doubles, and the pair of Indra Kumar Lakhe and Puja Shrestha entered the last four in the mixed doubles section.

Anil Kumar Lakhe, who entered the men’s quarter-finals on the opening day and was teamed up with Bharat Shrestha, complained of stomach ache before the men’s double match against Sri Lankans Dumindra Jayakody and Thushara Edirisinghe, sending the visitors into the last eight.

The five-day tournament has been organised by Nepal Badminton Association under the sponsorship of Samsung.

In women’s singles, Saradevi Tamang defeated Akram Ayesha of Pakistan 11-7, 11-6, while other four Nepali players lost their matches. Samjhana Khaling lost to Konica Rani Adhikary 5-11, 0-11; Sujana Shrestha was routed by Renu Chandrika De Silva of Sri Lanka 0-11, 1-11; Saraswoti Shakya went down to Thilini Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka 0-11, 1-11; and Binma Kumari Tulachan won the first set 11-1, but could not capitalise on the lead and and lost two other sets 9-11, 3-11 to Dulai Hulder of Bangladesh.

In men’s doubles section second-round match, the Nepali duo of Pashupati Paneru and Pankaj Chand beat Bangladeshi pair of Mokhtar Hossain and Enayet Ullah Khan 17-16, 15-7 to enter the last four. In other second-round actions in the men’s doubles section, Ali Wajid and Ahsan Qamar of Pakistan beat Utsav Mishra and Santosh Pandey of India 15-11, 15-8; another Pakistani duo Ahmed Waqas and Tahir Ishaq defeated Nepal’s Prajwol Jung Rana and Nawaraj Joshi 15-7, 15-3. Earlier, the Pakistani pair of Wajid and Qamar had routed Nepali duo of Indra Mehata and Ram Singh Chaudhary 15-7, 15-0 in the only first-round match of the championship.

The mixed doubles shuttlers also could not provide cheer to the home fans as the three pairs failed to advance to the semi-finals. Indra Maheta and Puja Shrestha made it to the semi-finals with a 15-13, 15-11 win over Bangladesh’s Mokhtar Hossain and Konica Rani Adhikary.

In other matches, Ramsingh Chaudhary and Samjhana Khaling lost to Sri Lankan pair of Thushara Ediresinghe and Renu C De

Silva 2-15, 2-15, while the other pair of Pashupati Paneru and Sumina Shrestha of Nepal went down to another Sri Lankan duo of Duminda Jayakody and Thilini Jayasinghe 13-15, 7-15; and Pankaj Chand and Saradevi Tamang lost to Pakistani pair of Ahsan Qamar and Sara Khan 8-15, 12-15.