Aditya Joshi, Reshma Karthik bag u-19 titles

Sub junior national champion Aditya joshi and Reshma Karthik, both from Air India, bagged the u-19 boys and girls singles titles in the All India Junior Ranking badminton tournament in Hyderabad on Saturday.

Joshi, who had to settle for the runners up spot in the junior nationals last year, avenged the loss in Imphal against his teammate Harsheel Dani 18-21, 21-10, 21-18 in an hour long encounter, while Reshma upset junior national champion and top seed G Ruthiva Shivani 21-18, 21-16 in just 36 minutes.

The loss also ended Ruthvika’s hopes of bagging the double crown, having won the girls u-17 singles final against third seed Shriyanshi Pardeshi 21-18, 18-21, 21-13.

Second seed S Daniel Farid claimed the u-17 boys singles title with a 21-14, 21-17 victory over Sankeerth BR.

Final results:

U-17:

Boys singles: S Daniel Farid bt BR Sankeerth 21-14, 21-17

Boys doubles: Chirag Shetty/M R Arjun bt Rohan Kapoor/Saurabh Sharma 21-15, 13-21, 21-13

Girls singles: Ruthvika Shivai bt Shriyanshi Pardeshi 21-18, 18-21, 21-13

Girls doubles: Mahima Aggarwal/Shikha Gautam bt Kanika Kanwal/Shriyanshi Pardeshi 21-11, 21-15

U-19

Boys singles: Aditya Joshi bt Harsheel Dani 18-21, 21-10, 21-18

Boys doubles: K Chaitanya Reddy/Santosh Ravuri bt Shyam Prasad/Shlok Ramchandran 14-21, 22-20, 21-18

Girls singles: Reshma Karthik bt Ruthvika Shivani 21-18, 21-16

Girls doubles: J Meghana/K Maneesha bt Sruthi KP/Farha Mather 21-16, 21-18

Mixed doubles: Sanyam Shukla/J Meghana bt Santosh Ravuri/K Maneesha 25-23, 29-27

Harsheel, Ruthvika to lead Indian challenge at BAC Youth (U-19) championship

Junior National champions Harsheel Dani of Air India and Ruthvika Shivani of Andhra Pradesh will lead the Indian contingent in the Badminton Asia youth (U-19) championship to be held in Sabah, Malaysia from July 7-14.
The championship will be played in two parts with the mixed team competition being played from June 7-10 followed by the individual championship.
India had failed to qualify for the knock out stage in the mixed team competition in the last edition in Korea, losing both their group matches. However, PV Sindhu had become the first Indian women's singles shuttler to win the individual singles title.

India Team: 

Boys: Harsheel Dani, Aditya Joshi, Arun George, Arsalan Naqvi, Shyam Prasad, Shlok Ramchandran, Sanyam Shukla, Vinay Kumar Singh, K Chaitanya Reddy, Santosh Ravuri.
Girls: Ruthvika Shivani, Rituparna Das, Reshma Karthik, Shreyanshi Pardeshi, J Meghna, K Maneesha, Poorvisha S Ram, Kuhoo Garg, Riya Mukherjee

After Srikanth, brother Nanda Gopal brings home a title

Hours after his brother K Srikanth bagged the men’s singles crown in the Thailand Grand Prix Gold in Bangkok, K Nanda Gopal made it a day to remember for the family by teaming up with K Maneesha to lift the mixed doubles crown in the Maldives International Badminton Challenge in Male.
Unseeded Nanda Gopal and Maneesha got the better of the Korean combination of Dae Sung Kim and Bo Kyung Oh 21-16, 23-21 in 40 minutes for their maiden international title.
Incidentally, Srikanth’s had won the men’s singles title of this very tournament last year and his career graph has only seen an upward trend since then.
Both Srikanth and Nanda Gopal had reached the semifinals of the senior nationals in Srinagar in October last year after which Nanda Gopal decided to concentrate on doubles.
In fact, during their junior days, Srikanth would partner Maneesha in the mixed doubles category and it was the first time Maneesha and Nanda Gopal took the court together on the international stage.

Injured Sindhu to skip Indonesia Super Series Premier

Malaysia Grand Prix Gold champion P V Sindhu would skip the Indonesia Super Series Premier badminton tournament to be played next week in Jakarta after failing to recover completely from a knee injury.
The Asian junior champion, who had suffered a niggle last month and further aggravated it at the Sudirman Cup mixed team championship in Malaysia, had also pulled out of the Thailand Grand Prix Gold this week.
Confirming this, chief national coach Pullela Gopi Chand said Sindhu had started training in the last few days but she was not 100 per cent and hence would pull out of the Indonesia Open.
“The call over her Singapore Super Series participation (that will follow the Indonesia Open) would be taken in a few days after seeing her progress in practice,” he added.

Srikanth bags Thailand GP Gold crown

K Srikanth became only the second Indian men’s singles badminton player to lift a Grand Prix Gold title when the 20-year-old upset world number seven and top seed Boonsak Ponsana in his own backyard at the Thailand Open in Bangkok on Sunday.
The 13th seed, who trains at the Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad,

K Srikanth with the Thailand GP Gold trophy

got the better of the experienced Ponsana 21-16, 21-12 in just 34 minutes to clinch the crown without dropping a single game in the entire tournament.
The Grand Prix Gold event is just one rung below the coveted Super Series circuit in the Badminton World Federation’s tournament structure. National champion P Kashyap is the only other Indian to win a GP Gold title when he bagged the Syed Modi GP Gold crown in Lucknow last year.
In fact, Srikanth’s effort is all the more commendable since no Indian men’s singles player has won a tournament about the Grand Prix level outside India since Pullela Gopi Chand’s All England triumph in 2001.
In the final, Srikanth adopted an aggressive strategy against the wily Thai and the approach paid dividend as the Indian dominated the match throughout.
Understandably national coach Pullela Gopi Chand was elated with the victory and said it was a well thought out strategy to attack Ponsana as the courts were faster in Bangkok.
“We had discussed the way we wanted to approach the match yesterday. Earlier when Indian players had beaten Boonsak, the courts were slow and they had managed to tire him out. But here Srikanth had to dominate the net exchanges and he did that well,” he added.