Former internationals Aparna Popat and Naheed Divecha advanced to the women’s doubles semifinals at the G D Birla Memorial Masters tournament in Mumbai. Top seeds and experienced players dominated across categories, with strong performances in both professional and veteran events.

Former internationals Aparna Popat and Mangrish Palekar still have plenty of moves from their playing days, as was evident in their performance at the G D Birla Memorial Masters Inter-Club Badminton Tournament, promoted by Badminton Gurukul, here, on Friday.

Popat-Divecha pair enter women’s doubles semis

Partnering with Naheed Divecha, the top-seeded duo scored a 15-11, 15-3 win over Jaanvi Merani and Sonal Battad to enter the 75+ women’s doubles semis. In another tough last-eight encounter, Anagha Deshmukh and Smita Salgaonkar recovered from the loss of the first game to get past Aanchal Vaswani and Khushboo Sagar 14-16, 15-10, 15-6.

Palekar shines in men’s doubles with Jaitly