Badminton: Pranay, Rishika bag gold medals

Second seed Pranay Katta of Rajasthan stunned top seed Lakshay Sharma by logging a comeback win to bag the men’s title on the concluding day of the Yonex-Sunrise North Zone Interstate Badminton Championships at the Sector 38 Sports Complex here.

Pranay lost the first game 8-21, only to return in the next second 21-8. In the decider, both players played at par until Pranay marched ahead to win the title with a score of 21-18.

Delhi’s Rishika Nandi won the women’s title in an identical manner over Unnati Jaral from Jammu & Kashmir. Rishika lost the first game 15-21 and bounced back in the second by logging a 21-15 win. In the final game, she conformably maintained her match winning performance and ended the set with a 21-5 victory.

The pair of Bhavya Chhabra and Param Choudhary from Delhi won the men’s doubles final 21-15 21-19 against Denish Shrivastava and Shubham Patel of Rajasthan. The team of Khushi Gupta and Likhita Srivastava from Delhi won the women’s doubles gold by defeating Haryana’s Apoorva and Sakshi Gahlawat 21-18 21-11.

Local contenders Kevin CC Wong and Mahnoor Kaur went down against Haryana’s Aaryan Sapiah and Jiya Rawat 11-21 16-21 in the mixed doubles final. In the U-19 mixed doubles final, Divyansh Rawat and Dianka Waldia defeated Druv Datta (PNB) and Manya Ralhan 21-15 21-18. The pair of Akanksha Singh and Ruchi Chahal won the girls’ U-19 doubles final by defeating Saanvi Nautiyal and Samridhi Bhardwaj 21-16 21-19, while Rajasthan’s Aryan Tyagi and Murli Sharma won the boys’ U-19 doubles final by ousting Druv Datta and Mridul Jha 21-15 21-17.

Delhi’s Sonna Ginpaul won the boys’ U-19 final by defeating second seed Manish Phogat 21-18 21-14, and Parul Choudhary of Rajasthan won the girls’ U-19 title by recording a 21-15 21-14 win over Rishika Nandi.

Pullela Gopichand, Padma Bhushan, Khel Ratna, Dronacharya Awardee and chief national coach of Indian badminton teams, awarded the winners. Priyank Bharti, president of the Chandigarh Badminton Association, proposed the vote of thanks while Kanwal Thakar Singh, former national champion and Arjuna Award recipient, TPS Puri, former chief national coach, OD Sharma and Ajay Singhania, vice-presidents of the Badminton Association of India, and Mukesh Goel, Irwin Khanna and AJ Singh were also present.

Surinder Mahajan, general secretary, and Col Raj Parmar, senior vice-president, handed over trophies to each participant of the championship.