Vadodara, January 9: V. Laasya Subramanyam of Telangana became the first one to book her berth in the main draw of the Junior Girls when she sent Kushi Viswanath of Karnataka, the Group 1 leader, packing with a shock 3-2 verdict in the 11Even Sports 78th Junior and Youth National Championships at the SAMA Indoor Complex here on Sunday.

Her state mate Varuni Jaiswal from group 3 and Selenadeepthi Selvakumar from group 2 also, more or less, ensured their passage into the second stage with authentic wins over their rivals along Abhinaya Ramesh of Tamil Nadu, Shruti Amrute of Maharashtra, Naina of Telangana and Srushti Haleangadi of Maharashtra from other the five of top eight groups.

Similarly in Junior Boys, Delhi’s Yashansh Malik, UP’s Sarthak Seth, Maharashtra’s Aniruddha Marathe, Harshavardhan Lahoti of Telangana notched up easy wins over their rivals from the top five groups with the exception of Gujarat’s Ishaan Hingorani, group 4 leader, who lost his opening match to PSPBA’s Satyam Giri Gupta 2-3, putting his qualification in jeopardy.

With 48 and 56 players to qualify for the second stage of the Junior Boys and Girls events, respectively, opening the first match with a good win is always ideal. But unfortunately, it has not been case with Kushi Viswanath and Ishaan and as a result, they bowed out without making an impression in the all-important nationals, particularly with selectors sitting down to pick the national campers to train for the 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games.

Kushi did well to take the first game by a minimal point but Laasya made a fantastic comeback to go 2-1 up, including winning the third game on extended point. However, Kushi fought well and equalled when she won the fourth game with a lot to spare only to bow out as quickly in the decider as she won the previous game to lose 11-9, 5-11, 10-12, 11-6, 7-11.

Ishaan’s game plan was even more startling as he began very poorly, losing the first two games to Satyam Giri but slowly gained momentum to take the third and fourth games without a fuss to level the score. But one cannot visualize what happened to him in the decider, despite being ahead of his PSPB rival on a couple of occasions, as he eventually lost 5-11, 7-11, 11-7,11-9, 8-11.

However, the Gujarat boy managed to pull it off against Mander Hardikar of Maharashtra B in the first round of the Youth Boys singles when Ishaan won 8-11, 3-11, 11-8, 18-16, 11-8—his confidence rising after winning the fourth game after six deuces and saving five game points.

Delhi’s Kritika Malik had a harrowing time against Telangana’s Pranitha Garlapati which the former warded off to keep her chances of qualification alive when she won 9-11, 3-11, 11-5, 12-10, 11-9.

Maharashtra’s Ashlesha Trehan struggled past Renuka Aswani of Kerala 10-12, 11-5, 5-11, 11-6, 11-8 in their first round outing of the Youth Girls.

With just one out of two rounds slated for the day completed in Youth Boys and Girls singles, players with reputation are expected to advance to the main draw as only 56 and 40 Youth Boys and Girls can make the cut from as many groups, comprising approximately 300 players.

They will all be joined by the eight top-ranked players, who have earned their byes because of their rankings, in each section and will be seen action from tomorrow.