The num­ber one seed­ed play­er Al­lis­tair Es­pinoza got a bye in the open­ing round of the So­lo Se­nior Na­tion­al Bad­minton Cham­pi­onship at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre, Tacarigua on Tues­day night, and pro­gressed to the quar­ter­fi­nals yes­ter­day of the Men's Sin­gles lat­er on, with a gut­sy per­for­mance against Petrotrin's Vi­jai Sam­nar­ine in the sec­ond round.

The Shut­tle­force play­er showed no signs of rusti­ness due to his in­ac­tion from the ear­li­er round but rather en­dured the chal­lenge from Sam­nar­ine in the open­ing set be­fore pre­vail­ing 21-17. Af­ter­wards, the path was made clear, as he held off his coun­ter­part 21-9 in the lat­ter set for the right to be among the re­main­ing eight play­ers in the tour­na­ment.

Mikael Joachim, the num­ber two seed and Jade All­man, who went in­to the tour­na­ment as the third-seed­ed play­er, are al­so among the big eight, fol­low­ing their vic­to­ries over Josef Gon­za­lez 24-22, 23-21 and Nathaniel Khillawan 21-9, 21-4 re­spec­tive­ly in the sec­ond round. Both al­so re­ceived wel­comed byes in the ear­li­er round and were sched­uled to fling in­to ac­tion yes­ter­day along with the oth­er qual­i­fiers Re­ece Mar­cano, Joshua Smith, Roger Moore and Zion St Rose.

Es­pinoza was ex­pect­ed to come up against Mar­cano in the first of four quar­ter­fi­nal match­es yes­ter­day, with the oth­ers be­ing: Smith against Khillawan: Moore ver­sus All­man: and St Rose fac­ing Joachim.

Women's Sin­gles ac­tion was al­so sched­uled to take place yes­ter­day af­ter flaw­less per­for­mances by Cheque­da Doboulet and Nekeisha Blake in group A, and Avril Plaza-Mar­celle who cam­paigned out of Group B.

Plaza-Mar­celle, in spite of her in ac­tion for the past months, did not show signs of rusti­ness ei­ther and pre­vailed con­vinc­ing­ly over Jo­han­na Walk­er in her open­ing match 21-19, 21-13. In her sec­ond game, Plaza-Mar­celle was even more men­ac­ing, by whip­ping Sha­nia Lee 21-10, 21-7 to bat­tle for the top spot in the group.

In the oth­er group, Blake and De­boulet were in­sep­a­ra­ble, both se­cur­ing wins against De­mi Ram­di­al and Afiya Clarke in their re­spec­tive match­es.

Plaza-Mar­celle was ex­pect­ed to face Leann Cas­tana­da, who was a no-show on an open­ing day, last night in the fi­nal match of the round-robin play­off, while Blake and De­boulet were set to be on a mouth-wa­ter­ing col­li­sion course to com­plete the group.