16-year-old Anmol Crowned Senior National Badminton Champion

Senior National Badminton Championships: Young rising women’s singles shuttler Anmol Kharb put up an outstanding performance to win the national title as she defeated Punjab’s Tanvi Sharma, with a stunning 15-21, 21-17, 16-8 win in the women’s singles final at the 85th Senior National Badminton Championships 2023, here on Sunday.

The tournament, organised by the Badminton Association of India (BAI), was held in Assam after four years.

In women’s singles title clash, which lasted almost an hour, Tanvi was a game ahead against Haryana shuttler after the first game. Though, that didn’t faze India No. 1 in U-19 and U-17 BAI rankings, Anmol’s confidence as she used angles on court very well, along with her excellent court coverage to make her mark in next two games. Already trailing 8-16 in decider, Tanvi complained about injury to the match officials as Anmol was eventually declared the winner.

Meanwhile men’s singles title clash was an upset as unseeded Chirag Sen secured the national title after defeating fourth seeded Tharun M of Telangana 21-14, 13-21, 21-9.

India No. 2 in BAI rankings Tharun turned the course of the match in his favour in second game, after conceding the first one. But Chirag made fantastic comeback in decider, with clever strokes at right moments to stamp his authority.

In mixed doubles summit clash, recently crowned Odisha Masters 2023 champions Dhruv Kapila-Tanisha Crasto dominated the match from the start. They comfortably defeated sixth seeded duo of Nitin Kumar-Navdha Manglam 21-13, 21-8 in 25 minutes to race towards their maiden national title.

While Priya Devi Konjengbam-Shruti Mishra lifted the women’s doubles title with a superb come-from-behind 11-21, 21-14, 21-18 win over Maharashtra’s Ritika Thaker-Simran Singhi in an hour and 11 minutes long final.

Coming into the final as favourites, Ritika-Simran started off well but Priya and Shruti kept their calm and composure, even after being 10-15 down in decider at one point, to outperform the fifth seeds in next two games.

Men’s doubles final was an edge-of-the-seat thriller where K Pruthvi Roy-Suraj Goala, who train at recently inaugurated National Centre of Excellence in Guwahati, caused an upset by defeating Krishna Prasad Garaga-Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala 20-22, 24-22, 21-14.

The duo of Pruthvi and Suraj conceded a very closely fought opening game. Keeping that aside, the aggressive duo left no stone unturned in next couple of games to hand a defeat to the experienced top seeds combination of Krishna-Vishnu in the end.