Jamshedpur: The inaugural JSA Volleyball Challenger's Trophy kicked off at the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Bistupur on Friday with spikers from four teams displaying their skills across the net.
JSA Red and JSA Green outfits topped the table with four points each at the end of the first day's league round. JSA Yellow and JSA Blue failed to log a point.
The Green and Red teams started their campaign on a winning note, defeating Yellow (25-23, 20-25 and 15-09 and Blue (25-23 and 25-24), respectively.
The JSA Yellow spikers showed some resolve by winning the opening set, but lost control of the game and allowed their opponents to make a comeback.
JSA Red, on the other hand, had a comfortable outing versus Blue.
Both Green and Red also won their second matches. The former overcame stiff resistance before prevailing over Blue with a 23-25, 25-22 and 15-12 win while Red overcame Yellow 21-25, 25-19 and 15-11.
Earlier, the tournament was inaugurated by Jusco's senior GM and chairman of JSA volleyball sub-committee Dhananjay Mishra in the presence of Tata Steel sports wing head and JSA vice-president Ashish Kumar, secretary Avinash Kumar and member Hassan Imam.
The finals are scheduled on Saturday.
The two-day tournament is a new initiative by the recently-formed JSA volleyball and is aimed at promoting the game and providing a platform and exposure to city spikers. The event will be held annually.
Badminton
Samarth Maurya, Manoranjan Kumar and Shantu Kumar Sharma stitched up comfortable wins to sail into the second round of Under-17 boys' single on the opening day of East Singhbhum District Badminton Championship, which kicked off at Mohan Ahuja Stadium in Bistupur on Friday.
Over 170 shuttlers from Jamshedpur are taking part in the event, being organised by East Singhbhum Badminton Association (ESBA).
Samarth beat Aniket Prakash 15-4, 15-8 while Manoranjan tripped Sanjay Sahu 15-7, 15-6. Shantu edged out Abhshek Beura 15-9, 15-8.
Aarti Kumari and Anisha Mishra romped into the second round of Under-17 girls' singles by posting comfortable wins against Shradha Yadav (15-3, 15-1) and Puja Kumari ( (15-1, 15-3), respectively.
Competition in the Under-16 boys' singles saw Siddhant Pandey, Akash Biswas and Aryaan Singh advance into the second round. Siddhant routed Rishav Jha 15-4, 15-2 while Akash defeated Aryan Kumar (15-7, 15-7). Aryaan put it across Anish Raj 15-11, 15-12.
Among the girls, Ahushi Verma, Devyanshi Pandit and Ravleen Kaur made it to second round of Under-15 singles. Ahushi overcame Antrasha Kumari in three sets 15-5,15-16 and 15-10 while Devyanshi comfortably beat Anjali Sinhania 15-9, 15-8. Ravleen also faced tough challenge from Priyam Agarwal before carving out a 15-13, 14-14 and 15-13 win.
Krish Dubey, Aman Sengupta and Ritesh Kumar Singh moved into the Under-13 boys' singles second round while Ridhi Anand, Sanjaya Srivastava and Awika Kumar slipped into round two in the girls' Under-13 singles section.
Performance of shuttlers will be the key for selection in the district squad for the upcoming state meet starting at Mohan Ahuja Stadium on August 29.