National champion and top seed Ratnajeet Tamang of Nepal Army, second seed Bikash Shrestha of Armed Police Force (APF) and third seed Sajan Krishna Tamrakar, all achieved double wins in their men´s singles league matches. [break]
Tamang defeated 16th seed Basanta Bajracharya of Palpa 21-7, 21-15 and eighth seed Bishnu Katuwal of Nepal Police 21-16, 19-21, 21-10. Second seed Shrestha of APF received a walkover from 17th seed Irfan Ansari of Banke and overcame fifth seed Sahadev Khadka of the same departmental team 23-21, 21-11.
Third seed Sajan Krishna Tamrakar saw off ninth seed Deepak Bohara of Nepal Police Club 21-12, 21-12 and beat Army shuttler Suroj Maharjan 21-12, 21-10.
Fourth seed Indra Mahata of APF overcame his colleague Sudip Sedhai 21-16, 21-12 but was defeated by 10th seed Sanjiv Khadka of Nepal Police 21-18, 15-21, 27-25.
Seventh seed Pankaj Chand of APF overcame Sahadev Khadka 15-21, 21-17, 22-20. Similarly, sixth seed Deepesh Dhami of Army overcame Sanjeev Khadka of Nepal Police 22-20, 21-15. Eighth seed Bishnu Katuwal of Police saw off 11th seed Bishal Pradhan of APF 21-17, 21-14 and 13th seed Bivek Shrestha defeated ninth seed Deepak Bohara of Nepal Police 21-11, 21-12.
In the women´s singles league matches, top seed Nangsal Devi Tamang of Army beat fifth seed Amita Giri of the same departmental team 21-15, 21-14. Fourth seed Shiksha Shrestha of APF overcame her sixth-seeded colleague Samjhana Khaling 21-8, 21-14, second seed Sabina Panthi of APF saw off Sulochana Bhaktaraj of Ilam 21-11, 21-16 and third seed and national champion Saradevi Tamang of Army beat eighth seed Jalmaya Gurung 21-7, 21-5.
In the men´s doubles category, Ramesh Pun and Pujan Shrestha´s pair of Myagdi, Suman Limbu and Joseph Adhikari´s pair of APF, Nirajan Devkota and Purna Bahadur Thapa´s pair of Kathmandu, Bivek Shrestha and Nabin Shrestha´s pair of Bhojpur, and Sunil Barahi and Deepak Shakya´s pair of Army made it to the second round winning their respective matches.
Earlier, CPN-UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal inaugurated the event.
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