Badminton: Aakarshi & Mithun win singles titles at Senior Ranking Tournament

Top seed Aakarshi Kashyap emerged victorious in women's singles while 15th seed Mithun Manjunath took the title in men's singles at the Yonex-Sunrise All India Senior Ranking Tournament 2020 concluded in Bengaluru on Sunday.

Kashyap did not have an easy time on the court though. 16th seed Gayatri Gopichand proved to be a tough one to crack as she grabbed the second game. But Kashyap calmed her nerves and produced some brilliant shots to outplay Gopichand in the decider and complete the marathon 21-17, 12-21, 21-9 win in 63 minutes.

The men's singles section witnessed a mini upset as the 15th seed Mithun Manjunath prevailed 21-17, 21-9 over 12th seed Kaushal Dharmamer in a solid performance from start to finish. The 21-year-old Manjunath, who made it to the top 75 in the world last year and has been picked by Pune7 Aces to play in the Premier Badminton League Season 5, had earlier accounted for the sixth seed Rahul Yadav Chittiaboina and tenth seed Siddharth Pratap Singh this week.

Both the men's and the women's doubles categories had the top seeds losing in the finals. In women's doubles, it was a sterling show from the unseeded pair of Rutaparna Panda and Maneesha K, who stunned top seeds and current National Champion Shikha Gautam and Ashwini Bhat 21-19, 21-7.

The men's doubles summit clash was an enthralling showdown between the top seeds Krishna Prasad Garaga-Shlok Ramchandran and sixth seeds Utkarsh Arora-Saurabh Sharma. Garaga and Ramchandran made a strong start and pocketed the first game 21-14 riding on their fabulous footwork and aggressive smashes. But they could not keep away the sixth seeds who lifted their game by several notches in the second and showed some steely resolve in the third to finish the 14-21, 21-9, 21-16 victory.

Maneesha K tasted double delight as she teamed up with MR Arjun to triumph in mixed doubles as well. The two rebounded from losing the first game to win the match 17-21, 21-13, 21-11 against Dingku Singh Konthoujam and Ritika Thaker.