Anand seemed to have all the shots, and his display looked like it came from veteran. Anand's opponent, Rohit More, was no muck with the racquet and had it been anybody else, Rohit would have a different result to show.

On several occasions, Rohit seemed to have cornered Anand, but the latter seemed to get out with some breathtaking shots. The drops came out of nowhere, the dribbles skimmed just over the net, the placements to Rohit's flanks were inch perfect and once he even played a backhand from the backcourt which dropped into Rohit's backhand. It was delectable.

In a women's doubles semi-finals, former national champion Ami Shah teamed up with Padmini Desai to quell the challenge of youngsters Gauri Narayan and AnujWadke.

The combined experience of Ami and Padmini in years was almost double that of the Gauri-Anuj combination and it was worth a great deal to watch the veterans battle back after being a game down. Ami and Padmini won 10-15, 15-3, 17-16.

Gauri and Anuj started with ferocious speed and that took their opponents by surprise. Gauri and Anuj had a 8-3 lead before Ami-Padmini fought back.

After losing the first game, they played brilliantly to win the second. And in the decider, Ami-Padmini squandered six match-points at 14-12, staved off one when down 15-16 before winning the game 17-16.

The feature of Ami-Padmini win was their superior defence. Both retrieved almost everything that was hit in their direction. An anesthetist, Padmini was like a rock in defence while Ami provided the classy flicks and feints to sent their opponents the wrong way.

Gauri and Anuj banked on the one factor to upset their opponents -- intense hitting. It almost worked.

RESULTS

Men's singles (2nd round): RajivBagga bt Rahul Tipnis 15-7, 15-5; Sanket Shetty bt Karan Modi 15-10, 15-1; Amogh Kulkarni bt Santosh Kshatriya 15-4, 15-10; R Rohan bt Vinayak Puthran 15-9, 15-11; Bhushan Akut bt Jayesh Dhuri 15-2, 15-9; Alok Singh bt Sandip Dhillon 15-7, 7-0 (conceded); Mayur Tawade bt Pradip Behrani 15-5, 15-9.

Junior boys singles (1st round): Karan Modi bt Amit Kohli 15-1, 15-0; Rahul Tipnis bt Amit Singh 15-8, 17-15; Rahul Sadani bt Akshay Saraf 15-6, 15-3; Nikhil Wad bt Kashyap Parekh 15-13, 15-13; Vinayak Puthran bt Matreya Pandya 15-0, 15-1; R Rohan bt Abhishek Bajaj 15-8, 15-7.

Sub-Junior boys singles (2nd round): Amit Singh bt Akshay Deshmukh 15-2, 15-2; Indrajit Tawade bt Salil Balgi 15-4, 15-10; Sujay Thacker bt Siddhant Pillay 15-0, 15-3; Rohit Sadani bt Rohit More 15-2, 15-3.

Midget boys singles (2nd round): Siddharth Bhimani bt Vikram Bhatnagar 17-16, 15-13; Anand Pawar bt Rohit More 15-3, 15-9; Rohit Sadali bt Siddharth Gupta 15-8, 15-9. Quarter-finals: Ajay Jayaram btSiddharth Bhimani 15-1, 15-3.

Mini boys singles (SFs): Pravin Chopda bt Raj Kothari 15-0, 15-1; Kush Munim bt Purav Surya Murthy 15-7, 15-6.

Women's doubles (SFs): Ami Shah-Padmini Desai bt Gauri Narayan-Anuj Wadke 10-15, 15-3, 17-16.

Sub-junior girls singles (1st round): Bhakti Mehta bt Prajakta Mahajan 11-4, 11-0; Dyanda Chitale bt Neha kapadia 11-9, 5-11, 12-11.

Midget girls singles (1st round): Sonal More bt Aditi Mahajan 11-9, 11-5. Quarter-finals:

Druti Deshpande bt Soumya Padhye 11-2, 11-1; Amrita Sawant bt Prerna Wad 11-0, 11-1; Sonal More bt Rachana Bajaj 9-11, 11-6, 11-8.