Tamil Nadu’s Abhinaya Ramesh, who struggled in her group 5 first-round match, had to bring her experience to the table to beat Mahasweta Batsallya of Assam 3-2. Leading 2-0, the Tamil Nadu girl was stopped on her tracks as the Assam girl bounced back to level the score. However, Abhinaya came back determinedly to outwit her rival in the decider for 11-8, 11-8, 8-11, 8-11, 11-4 score.

Another interesting first-round outing was between Karnataka’s Sejal Kaushik and Tanushree Das Gupta from Meghalaya which the latter won 3-2 in a match of fluctuating fortunes. Another Karnataka girl, Spoorthi Venkateshan overcame LIC’s Anumita Tarafdar 3-2 after she was down 1-2. Spoorthi did well to take the last two games to shut out her opponent. West Bengal’s Mrittika Halder beat Raiilway’s Rupsa Bhattacharya 3-2 in group 21.

In group 25, Yashini Shivashankar from Tamil Nadu defeated Tanya Dutta from North Bengal after being down 0-2. The Tamil Nadu girl first levelled at 2-2 and then after two deuces won he decider 12-10.