Dani bags his maiden international title

There was no doubting the talent of Harsheel Dani. The only question was whether this eccentric youngster had enough hunger to trade flamboyance with consistency to win tournaments.

The 16-year-old showed enough of that this week end to beat many higher ranked and experienced shuttlers to lift the Sushant Chipalkatti Memorial India Junior (u-19) international badminton tournament at the WIE Complex in Pune on Sunday.

The Uday Pawar Academy trainee got the better of top seed C Rohit Yadav 15-21, 22-20, 21-15 in the final and completed the annihilation of all the top three seeds on the way to the summit.

Harsheel took time to adjust to Rohit’s style of play in the first game since he was playing the Gopichand Academy trainee for the first time. However, once he settled down he began dominating the net exchanges. The second game was a close encounter with the left-hander coming up with some timely winners to take the match into the decider.

“I played very well on the net today and was able to finish every time I got a opening. That made the difference,” said the shuttler, who plays for Air India in the domestic circuit.

Harsheel went into the tournament high on confidence having won his first u-19 national ranking tournament last month and that showed in the way he dismantled Bangladesh’s Mohammad Arif Hossain in the opening round.

He then accounted for second seed Wei Jian Ali of Malaysia and third seed Pratul Joshi of India in straight games in the quarterfinals and semifinals to set up a summit clash with Rohit.

Double crown for Ruthvika

In the girls’s singles final, second seed G Ruthvika Shivani got the better of top seed Rituparna Das 21-19, 21-14 and then came back to team up with Poorvisha S Ram to lift the girl’s doubles title by beating J Meghana and K Maneesha 21-12, 18-21, 21-19.

Results:

Boy’s Singles: Harsheel Dani (IND) bt 1-C Rohit Yadav (IND) 15-21, 22-20, 21-15

Boy’s doubles: 1-Arsia Putra/Hantoro (INA) bt 2-Yantony Saputra/Tedi Supriadi (INA) 21-17, 21-13

Girl’s singles: 2-G Ruthvika Shivani (IND) bt 1-Rituparna Das (IND) 21-19, 21-14

Girl’s doubles: 1- G Ruthvika Shivani/Poorvisha S Ram (IND) bt 2-J Meghana/K Maneesha (IND) 21-12, 18-21, 21-19

Mixed doubles: 1-T Hema Nagendra Babu/J Meghana (IND) bt Santosh Ravuri/K Maneesha 21-18, 23-21