National Games: Sai Praneeth, Aakarshi Kashyap clinch males’s and girls’s singles titles in badminton

Telangana’s B Sai Praneeth and Chhattisgarh’s Aakarshi Kashyap clinched the lads’s and girls’s singles badminton gold medals respectively within the National Games on Thursday.

While Praneeth registered a hard-earned 21-11, 12-21, 21-16 victory over Karnataka’s Mithun Manjunath within the males’s singles closing, Aakarshi noticed off prime seed Malvika Bansod of Maharashtra 21-8, 22-20 within the ladies’s singles summit conflict.

Thirty-year-old Praneeth’s success meant that Telangana grabbed three gold medals in badminton. They had gained the combined group and girls’s doubles titles earlier.

Praneeth dominated the opening sport, leaping to an 8-2 lead and by no means wanting again. However, Mithun got here again stronger within the second sport however ultimately may do nothing however acknowledge that he was outplayed.

”Once the sport began to float away from me, I performed it cool to pay attention for the third sport,” stated Praneeth.

Mithun stored tempo with Praneeth for the many of the third sport however the skilled campaigner did sufficient to quell the problem of his younger opponent.

”Once I took the lead at 16-15, I performed it secure. I noticed Mithun was tiring and I had simply put the shuttle in,” stated Praneeth, who completed the match with a smash.

Earlier, second seed Aakarshi dominated the opening sport of the ladies’s singles closing towards an erratic Malvika, who wanted time to search out her rhythm.

The top-seeded Malvika started the second sport properly, opening up an 8-4 lead. Aakarshi fought again by retaining the shuttle in play longer and closed the hole at 9-9.

However, Malvika wasn’t keen to drop her guard and fold this time round. She stored the strain on her opponent and once more moved as much as an 18-14 lead and, at that stage, it felt just like the match may go right into a decider.

But Aakarshi modified the tempo of the rallies, pushed Malvika on the backhand nook, and bagged six consecutive factors to arrange two match factors.

Malvika did properly to avoid wasting two, however Aakarshi created a 3rd with a down-the-line smash after which wrapped up the crown with a crosscourt drop to clinch the primary gold medal for her state.

The Telangana duo of N Sikki Reddy and Gayatri Gopichand clinched the ladies’s doubles gold by beating nationwide champions Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam of Karnataka 21-14, 21-11 in a lopsided closing.

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