Panchkula shuttler brings laurels

Deepankar Sharda

Chandigarh, February 27

Panchkula shuttler Anupama Upadhyaya became the first-ever youngster from the district to make it to the final of the Senior National Badminton Championship.

Curious to play the final

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I was waiting for such performance since months now. I am happy with the results, but at the same time also curious to play the final. Aakarshi is a tough opponent and she smoothly sailed into the final. I will try to give my best and return home with the winning trophy. — Anupama Upadhyaya

Anupama, who is currently ranked 4th in the national senior circuit and 64th in the international circuit, reached the final of the ongoing 75th Inter-State – Inter-Zonal & 84th Senior National Badminton Championships at Pune.

She will now be up against Aakarshi Kashyap, who was part of the national women’s team that won the gold medal in the 2019 South Asian Games. In the semi-finals played today, she overpowered Assam’s Ashmita Chaliha after a see-saw battle. The Panchkula girls recorded a (21-18, 11-21, 21-18) win to enter the final. Earlier, she overpowered a tough challenge by 5th seeded Shriyanshi Valishetty of Gopichand Academy by logging a (21-10, 16-21, 21-19) victory in the quarterfinals. In qualifying rounds, she defeated Prerana Alvekar (21-11, 21-8), Unnati Bisht (21-11, 21-7) and Taneesha Singh (21-13, 21-11).

“I was waiting for such performance since months now. I am happy with the results, but at the same time also curious to play the final. Aakarshi is a tough opponent and she smoothly sailed into the final. I will try to give my best and return home with the winning trophy,” said Anupama.

“I was told that I am the first shuttler from Haryana to reach this tournament’s final. It’s a big achievement for me, but I want to make it more special by claiming the title,” she said. Last month in the Princess Sirivannavari Thailand Masters 2023, she went down (16-21, 19-21) to Ashmita and skipped out her pre-quarterfinals berth.

Last year, she won her first-ever senior ranking tournament at Visakhapatnam. In the final, she defeated 6th seed Aditi Bhatt of Uttarakhand in straight games (21-8, 21-15). She is currently ranked 62 as per the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings with 19,950 points. She was ranked 65th after winning the 2022 Polish Open and later won the Poland Challenge (Arlamow) and also reached the semi-finals of the Syed Modi India International Super 300 series. She won the Infosys Foundation International Challenge Tournament and had also played in the quarterfinals of the Orleans Open, a super 100 series tournament held in Orleans (France), and played semis in the Pune Junior International Grandprix.