Dharmamer wins Maldives International Challenge

Indian shuttler Kaushal Dharmamer clinched the men's singles title at the Maldives International Challenge with a straight-games win over Siril Verma, here on Sunday.

The 23-year-old from Mumbai, who won the Myanmar International Series earlier this month, registered a comfortable 21-13 21-18 victory over his compatriot in a match that lasted 35 minutes.

The final day of the competition saw Indians competing for the title in four of the five events. However, apart from Kaushal all others ended on the losing side.

In the women's doubles event, the duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy ended runner-up after going down 10-21 21-17 12-21 in a hard fought battle to the Japanese pair of Sayak Hobara and Natsuki Soni.

Saipratheek Krishnaprasad and Ashwini Bhat went down 11-21 15-21 to Thailand's Chaloempon Charoenkitamorn and Chasinee Korepap in the mixed doubles final.

While the second seeds men's doubles pair of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla lost 9-21 20-22 to top seeds Keiichiro Matsui and Yoshinori Takeuchi from Japan.