Nagpur: Krisha Soni of Nagpur will lead the challenge of city shuttlers in the season-opening Maharashtra State U-19 selection badminton tournament, which begins at the Arundhati Arun Badminton Academy, Besa, from Wednesday.The four-day tournament, organised by the Nagpur District Badminton Association (NDBA) under the aegis of the Maharashtra Badminton Association, will be conducted in memory of NK Garg. Maharashtra U-19 teams will be selected for the forthcoming West Zone championship.Briefing the media on Monday, Mangesh Kashikar, NDBA secretary, said, "As compared to the 180 entries in Nanded last year, the season-opening tournament in Nagpur has received an overwhelming response of over 250 participants.

Prizes of Rs 2.8 lakh will be distributed."As many as five events, including the boys' and girls' singles, doubles, and mixed doubles events, will be conducted. India's ninth-ranked shuttler, Aditya Tripathi of Pune, and Nagpur's Krisha Soni have been named as the top seeds in the boys' and girls' singles events, respectively. Both Aditya and Krisha will pair up as the second seeds in the mixed doubles tournament, where the Thane duo of Sanidhya Ekade and Aditi Gawade are the top seeds.

Last year in Nanded, Krisha entered the semifinals of the mixed doubles event.MLC Sandip Joshi will inaugurate the tournament on Wednesday. On the occasion, Arun Lakhani, the treasurer of the Badminton Association of India (BAI) and MBA president, Prashant Garg, the CMD of Diffusion Engineers Ltd, Shirish Boralkar, Siddharth Patil, and Mangesh Kashikar will share the dais.