India juniors win a bagful of medals at Bahrain Open

In an all-India final, Anargaya Manjunath and Suhana Saini secured the top spot at the ITTF Bahrain Junior and Cadet Open in Manama.

The top cadet girls team of India, comprising Manjunath and Saini defeated the second team consisting of Yashashwini Ghorpade and Kavyashree Baskar 3-0, in the final played on Tuesday.

In the singles event, both Anargaya and Suhana won their matches against Yashashwini and Kavyashree, respectively, to put their side 2-0 up. In the third rubber, the doubles, both Yashashwini and Kavyashree resisted taking their rivals to the decider.

But in the end, Anargaya and Suhana won 11-8,4-11, 11-8, 7-11, 11-7 to grab the gold, leaving the other Indian pair to settle for silver.

Similarly, the junior girls team had to settle for silver. But another gold and silver came India's way in the cadet girls as Anargaya added to her tally when she beat Yashashwini 11-9, 5-11, 11-6, 11-9. It was a good final between the two Karnataka girls who know each other's game but Yashashwini managed to take just a game off her rival.

In junior girls, Swastika Ghosh bagged a bronze when she lost to Russian Kristina Kazamtseva 12-10, 9-11, 7-11, 9-11, 8-11 in the semifinals.

Payas Jain emerged winners in the cadet boys singles final when he defeated Simon Belik of Czech Republic 11-9, 5-11, 11-8, 11-7. He, however, failed to go past the quarterfinal hurdle in junior boys singles as he fell to French Lilian Bardet of France 2-4.

In other events, India bagged a silver medal in junior girls doubles with Swastika Ghosh and Manushree Patil winning against Anargaya and Suhana Saini while Shana won a bronze in mini-cadet girls event.