Teenagers Kartik Jindal and Malvika Bansod sizzled with impressive performances in the ongoing Dr Akhilesh Das Gupta Memorial All India Senior Ranking badminton tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old Jindal from Haryana eased into the men’s singles final with a 21-9, 21-6 victory over Delhi’s Aakash Yadav while Malvika, the 17-year-old sensation from Nagpur, fought her way into the women’s singles semi-final by recording a 21-18, 21-17 win over Air India’s 18-year-old Bhavya Rishi.
Bhale comes through
Another Nagpur girl, Vaishnavi Bhale made it to the women’s singles final overcoming Chhattisgarh teen Aakarshi Kashyap 21-14, 10-21, 21-16. The seventh seeded Vaishnavi, 22, had to draw upon all her experience to down the 17-year-old Aakarshi, who had earlier stunned third seed Rasika Raje 11-21, 21-16, 21-16 in the quarter-final.
Vaishnavi’s run to the final has not been easy as she was stretched in the quarter-finals as well by 15th seed Kanika Kanwal of Railways before winning13-21, 21-16, 21-13. Jindal too had to toil hard to enter the last four stage upstaging 11th seed Vijetha NVS from Telangana 21-23, 21-16, 21-15.
Top seed Pratul Joshi of Madhya Pradesh quelled the challenge of Delhi’s Swamaraj Bora 24-22, 21-19 while West Bengal’s 19-year-old Arintap Dasgupta downed Railways’ Neeraj Vashisth 21-12, 21-10 in other men’s singles quarter-final clashes of the day.
The finals of the tournament will be held on Saturday.