Asha Sharma-Puja Batra win National Ranking Bridge Championship

Asha Sharma and Puja Batra emerged champions in the National Ranking Bridge Championship in ladies pair competition in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Asha and Puja maintained their overnight lead and stayed ahead among the 18 finalists in the final phase of the competition.

The duo put up a strong show from the halfway stage, finishing with 56 IMPs that helped them win the ladies pair crown.

Asha and Puja received a prize money of Rs 40,000.

Asha and Puja won the title ahead of Mumbai's Usha Kabra and Kolkata's Bharati Dey. Usha and Bharati finished runner-up with 50 IMPs, as Delhi's Devi Bhatnagar-Alka Jain was third with 37 IMPs.

Usha and Bharati got Rs 30,000. Devi and Alka received Rs 20,000, and the pairs up to the eighth position also received cash awards.

In the mixed teams and mixe pairings events will take place later this week.

Final positions (top 8)

1. Asha Sharma and Puja Batra, 2. Usha Kabra and Bharati Dey, 3. Devi Bhatnagar and Alka Jain, 4. Subhasree Basu and Meenal Thakur, 5. Aditi Jhaveri and Marianne Karmarkar, 6. Bindiya Kohli and Priya Balasubramanian, 7. Anjali Karthikeyan and Ritu Bangaria, 8. Veena Bobb and Ramani Menon.