All India Senior Tournament: Shuttlers Sourabh, Uttejitha emerge winners

2016 Chinese Taipei Masters winner Sourabh Verma registered a stunning comeback victory over top seeded Pratul Joshi to win the All India Senior Ranking Tournament played here last evening.

Sourabh went down 17-21 in the opening game but came back strong in the second game to win 21-14.

With the match tied 1-1, Sourabh brought all his experience into play and won the decider 21-18 to seal the match in one hour and 12 minutes.

Second seeded Sai Uttejitha Rao recorded a scintillating upset victory over multiple BWF Challenge series winner Rituparna Das to emerge winner in the women's singles competition.

Sai won the opening game 21-15 but was completely outclassed in the second game as she lost 7-21. But the Andhra girl held on to her nerves in the final game and outplayed Rituparna 21-15 to win the title.

Earlier, Dhruv Kapila and Meghana Jakkampudi got the better of the pair of Arun George and Arathi Sara Sunil 19-21, 21-14, 21-18 in 50 minutes to win the mixed doubles competition.

Elsewhere, the young pair of Rutuparna Panda and Aratha Sara Sunil joined forces for the first time and picked up an easy 21-10, 21-12 victory in just 32 minutes over Simran Singhi and Ritika Thaker to clinch the women's doubles title, while the duo of Arjun M.R and Shlok Ramachandran outplayed Krishna Prasad G and Dhruv Kapila 21-14, 21-16 in 32 minutes to take home the men's doubles title.

A total of five lakh rupees was doled out as prize money by Badminton Association of India for the winners. This tournament will serve as a qualification for the Asian Games.