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12th seed and former national champion Rituparna Das showed exceptional resilience to win the All India Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament 2018 held at the Prakash Padukone Sport Management in Bengaluru on Sunday. The Pullela Gopichand protégé needed 1 hour 5 minutes to edge Shikha Gautam 18-21, 24-22, 21-16 in the summit clash.
For the 21-year-old Haldia girl, who had an injury-riddled 2017 season, this is her first title of any kind this year and will definitely give her a huge boost of confidence.
Das accounted for higher seeds in the last couple of rounds and her performances showed that she is certainly on her way back. She came back from a game down to upset the fifth seeded Reshma Karthik 11-21, 21-15, 21-18 in the quarter-finals. In the next round, she eked out a tight first game and then cruised through the second game for a 21-19, 21-12 win over the second seeded Sai Uttejitha Rao Chukka.
Gautam too had been a giant-killer this week. She beat the 14th seeded Tanishq, the 15th seeded Ira Sharma and the eighth seeded Aakarshi Kashyap on her way to the final.
Manjunath did not drop a game all week
19-year-old Mithun Manjunath, seeded 10th at this tournament, won the men’s singles title after prevailing over the 11th seeded Siddharth Pratap Singh 21-12, 21-19 in 45 minutes. Manjunath did not even drop a game en route to the title.
Singh, who won the Swedish Open last month, had stunned the top seed Pratul Joshi 21-19, 21-19 in the semi-finals but could not replicate that performance in the final.
In men’s doubles, the fifth seeded pair of Chetan Anand and V Diju showed their experience by beating the eighth seeds Arjun Kumar Reddy and Gouse Shaik 21-18, 21-16 in the final. In women’s doubles, the eighth seeded women’s doubles pair of Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram reigned supreme over the sixth seeds Aparna Balan and Sruthi KP 21-18, 21-15.
Jakkampudi had double delight as she won the mixed doubles title too. She and Dhruv Kapila, who were unseeded, needed 33 minutes to knock out the fourth seeds Vighnesh Devlekar and Harika V 21-16, 21-14.
