Determined to make an impression on home soil, hosts Andhra Pradesh brought themselves within sniffing distance of a gold medal when both their men's and women's teams moved into the finals of the badminton event in the 32nd National Games in Hyderabad on Thursday.
The hosts enjoyed a satisfying day in badminton as the ten-day sporting extravaganza got under way with seven events, though the official opening ceremony is scheduled for Friday.
The Andhra Pradesh men's team prevailed over Uttar Pradesh 3-0 to cruise into the final with the unheralded J B S Vidhyadhar stealing the clinching victory over national champion Abhinn Shyam Gupta.
The Andhra eves brought more cheer to the contingent by brushing aside West Bengal 2-0 to set up a summit clash with
Maharashtra, who shut out Tamil Nadu 2-0.
Defending champions Services began their campaign on a scratchy note as they scraped past a spirited Chandigarh by a
solitary goal in a Group A men's hockey match.
Former champions Maharashtra, boasting of mercurial forward Dhanraj Pillay, also struggled to find their rhythm but still managed to quell the challenge of Bengal 2-0 at the Begumpet astro-turf stadium.
In women's hockey, defending champions Haryana and Jharkhand had no difficulty in brushing aside their Group A opponents in what turned out to be one-sided matches.
While Haryana exploited a sloppy defence to thrash Andhra Pradesh 4-0, Jharkhand were equally ruthless as they routed Punjab by an identical margin in another Group A contest.
Holders Punjab kept their reputation intact by demolishing Kerala 2-0 in the men's football group league match
while Tamil Nadu were lucky to get past Andhra Pradesh by a solitary goal, thanks to a brilliant goal by R Selva Kumar.
In women's football, strong contenders Manipur made a mockery of the Bengal defence to carve out a resounding 8-0
victory and begin their campaing in style.
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