By IANS
New Delhi : National champions Anup Sridhar and Saina Nehwal lived up to their reputation as they won the men’s and women’s singles titles respectively in the first Pramod Mahajan All India Ranking Badminton tournament here Sunday.
Top seed Anup prevailed over seventh seed J.B.S Vidyadhar 21-16, 21-14, while Saina registered a facile win over unseeded Sayali Gokhale of Maharashtra 21-10, 21-14 at the Siri Fort Sports Complex.
It was a double delight for Saina as she also won the women’s doubles title with Aparna Balan. They defeated Anita Ohlan and Dhanya Nair 21-10, 21-18.
In the men’s doubles final, the top seeded pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas had to fight nail and tooth to come back from a game behind to defeat Akshaye Dewalkar and V. Diju 16-21, 21-19, 21-14.
In the men’s singles final, Vidyadhar gave Sridhar a run for his money in the opening game as he raced on to a 4-10 lead. However, Sridhar used his international experience to great effect and came back strongly to level the game at 15-15.
From there onwards it was no looking back for the national champion as he lost just one point en route to wrapping up the game at 21-16.
In the second set, it was a different scenario as both the shuttlers were neck and neck till seven points, but Sridhar powered his way into the match through some elegant placing together with long rallies.
He also had to thank Vidyadhar, to whom he had lost in a thrilling three seeter in the semi-finals of the Senior Ranking tournament in Pune. Vidyadhar Sunday committed a lot of unforced errors that gave Sridhar the opportunity to make a comeback.
“I expected the match to be tough because last week he defeated me in Pune. So it’s a nice feeling to get the revenge.
“In this tournament, I found myself better and better with every match,” Sridhar said after his triumph.
Vidyadhar seemed a little dejected by the loss. “I started on a good note but could not carry on. In the middle of the first game I became a little stiff and that made me slow. Once you become slow against a opponent like Anup then its very difficult to come back,” he said.
“I need to improve my fitness to play long matches,” he added.
However, the script was totally different in the women’s final as Saina, ranked 26th in the world, did not put a foot wrong and crushed her young opponent easily in both games.
“I was pretty confident about my victory as I had easily defeated her earlier in the junior category, but she played pretty well. However, I need to improve my speed, I was pretty slow in the court today,” Saina said.