Bhubaneswar: The ‘Odisha Masters 2025’, an international badminton tournament, was inaugurated today at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium. Commissioner-cum-Secretary of the Sports and Youth Services Department, Sachin Ramchandra Jadhav, formally declared the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Tour Super 100 event open.

OSABA President Rajesh Prabhakar Patil presided over the ceremony, which was attended by Sports Director Bijaya Yedula, Cuttack Collector Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde, Badminton Asia Federation Tournament Manager Venugopal Ramalingam and OSABA Secretary Nilan Kumar.

This year, a total of 147 male players and 137 female players are participating in the Odisha Masters. They will compete across categories including Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles.

On Day 1, 24 qualifying matches were conducted in the forenoon, with 24 players and pairs advancing to the main draw across singles, doubles and mixed doubles events. In the afternoon session, 20 matches from the main draw were held.

Players who qualified from the singles qualifying rounds include:

From India – Ansh Vishal Gupta, Manav Choudhury, Ronak Chauhan, Numer Sheikh, Medhavi Naga, Sanskar Saraswat, Aditya Dibakar and Lokesh Reddy;

From Chinese Taipei – Chi Yuan Chenk;

From Japan – Nanami Someya;

From Indonesia – Dalia Aghania Puteri.

In the doubles category, the following pairs from India qualified:

Vimalraj Annadurei–Shreya Balaji, Rohit Mariswami–Ridhi Kaur, V. Reddy–K. Selvam, Jenith Abigel–Likhita Srivastav, D. Bhel Murugan–P. Natrajan, Nitin Kumar–Harsh Rana, K. Kumarbhel–R. Mohan Kumar, V.R. Narddhana–Ridubarshani Ramaswami, Aditi Bhatt–Sharvani Balekar, N. Ishwar Murti–D. Bhel Murugan, Murali Krishna Kanuri–Abhijit Moharana and Sakshi Galhabat–Tanisha Singh.

As of the filing of this report, in the main draw matches, Kevin Thangam, Sanith Dayananda and Tushar Subir from India, along with Mohammed Yusuf and Richi Ricorado from Indonesia, registered victories to advance to the next round.

With prize money of USD 110,000, the tournament is being managed by a 10-member team of BWF officials, a 12-member team from the Badminton Association of India, and a 46-member OSABA officials.