The 21-year-old stunned third seed Pooja Parekh 4-11, 11-6, 11-5 to set up a semi-final clash with top seed Aparna Popat in the Rs 4 lakh tournament organised by the Badminton Lovers Trust.

All the top men's seeds advanced into the semis. Top seed P Gopi Chand will meet No 4 Srikant Bakshi while No 3 Nikhil Kanetkar will play second seed Abhinn Shyam Gupta tomorrow.

Kotnis, who has been the national champion between 1988 to '94 in various age groups, will play Popat who put aside the challenge of Sampada Shetye 11-5, 12-11 in the quarter-finals. Kotnis lost to Popat in Kochi in the semis but will have the satisfaction of having beaten the national champion once, even if it was eight years ago in the sub-juniors.

GOPI IN SEMIS: Ajit Wijetilek would have wanted a better birthday gift than a quarter-final meeting withGopi Chand. The fifth year law student from Bangalore, who turned 22 today, pulled off a game against the national champion before bowing out.

Playing a game which Gopi Chand said was a lot similar to his own style, Wijetilek waited for his chance to take the second game after losing the second. However, he lost out to fatigue and to the experience of the national champion 15-3, 12-15, 15-5 in an hour and five minutes.

``I tried to get easy points in the decider. You can't get easy points from a player of Gopi's calibre,'' admitted the Padukone Academy trainee.

KANETKAR THROUGH: Kanetkar too dropped the second game after looking completely in command in the first against fifth seed Sachin Ratti. The No 3 managed to save four game points as well in the second but Ratti held out to win it.

Kanetkar then recovered his composure to capitalise on a series of Ratti errors for a 15-11, 14-17, 15-9 win in an hour and 15 minutes. ``I lost my concentration in the second,'' he admittedlater.

Results
Men's singles (quarter-finals):
P Gopi Chand (AP) bt Ajit Wijetilek (Kar) 15-3, 12-15, 15-5; Nikhil Kanetkar (A-I) bt Sachin Ratti (Rly) 15-11, 14-17, 15-9; Srikant Bakshi (Del) bt Parag Modi (A-I) 2-15, 18-16, 15-12; Abhinn Shyam Gupta (A-I) bt Sushant Saxena (UP) 15-11, 15-7.

Men's doubles (second round):
Vinod Kumar/Rajeev Bagga w/o Amogh Kulkarni/B Paithnakar; Anirudh Rao/Roy Mathew bt Sanket S/Sushant Niddodi 15-7, 15-5; Amrish Shinde/M Ghatnekar (Mah) bt Milind Ghate/Sameer Mahesh 15-5, 15-13; Mangrish Palekar/Bhushan Akut (Mah) bt Sri Shail/Jai T Anthony 15-12, 15-6; Jaison Xavier/D Amarnath bt Chetan Anand/M Hazarnish 15-11, 15-7; Ajay Kanwar/Vijaydeep Singh bt H Hardikar/M Tawade 15-1, 15-8; Jaseel P Ismail/Vincent Lobo w/o Vijay Lancy/Ajit Wijetilek; George Thomas/Marcos Bristo bt Sushant Saxena/Vikrant Patwardhan 15-7, 15-8.

Women's singles (quarter-finals):
Aparna Popat (Kar) bt Sampada Shetye (A-i) 115, 12-11; Nirmala Kotnis (A-I) btPooja Parekh (Rly) 4-11, 11-6, 11-5; Manjusha Kanwar bt CH Deepti 11-7, 11-2; Neelima Choudhary (A-I) bt PVV Lakshmi (AP) 11-5, 11-2.

Women's doubles (first round):
Pooja Parekh/CH Deepti w/o Neelima Choudhary/Sindhu G; Sampada Shetye/Ketaki Thakkar bt Kirti Kadam/Vinaya Shetty 15-2, 15-5.

Mixed doubles (first round):
Anuj Gupta/Vinaya Shetty bt Ravi Kunte/Meenakshi Wagh 13-15, 15-8, 15-4; Mayur Ghatnekar/Kirti Kadam bt B Nagaraj/CH Deepti 15-8, 18-17.