Badminton Asia Junior Championships 2023: Tara Shah, Rakshitha Sree enter pre-quarterfinals

Girls' doubles duo of Taneesha and Karnika also advanced.

India's budding shuttlers Tara Shah and Rakshitha Sree comfortably won their respective matches and moved to the round of 16 at the prestigious Badminton Asia Junior Championships 2023 held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia on Thursday.

Tara Shah exhibited exceptional skills and aggression as she dominated her opponent, Miku Kohara of Japan throughout the match and won with a stunning scoreline of 21-6, 21-17. Tara will take on China's Xu Wen Jing in the next round.

Rakshitha Sree S also displayed her prowess on the court as she triumphed over Malaysia's Carine Tee with an impressive score of 21-8, 21-10 in a match that lasted 24 minutes. She will face Huang Lin Ran of China in the pre-quarter final. 

The girls' doubles duo of Taneesha and Karnika won against Bui and Tran of Japan 21-14, 21-19 in 27 minutes. They will square off against Chen Fan Shu and Jiang Pei Xi of China in the round of 16 match tomorrow.

In boys' singles, Ayush Shetty showcased resilience against Japan's Yuna Nakagawa in a hard-fought match but ultimately lost 19-21, 22-20, 16-21 in a close match. Similarly in the mixed doubles, Samarveer and Radhika Sharma narrowly missed out on a win in a thrilling three game encounter against China's Gao Jia Xuan and Chen Fan Shu Tian, as the latter won 21-19, 19-21, 17-21.

The boys' doubles pair of Divyam & Mayank and Nicholas Raj & Tushar Suveer lost their matches and bowed out of the tournament whereas the girls' doubles duo of Tanvi Sharma and Radhika Sharma also ended their campaign in the round of 32.

Meanwhile, in the boys' singles- Lakshay Sharma and Samarveer and in the girls' singles category- Shriyanshi Valishetty and Anmol Kharb gave their all but lost their respective matches. Arul Murugan and Srinidhi Narayanan also went down fighting in their round of 32 match.