Indians bag Open and Senior titles in 17th BFAME Championships

Displaying fine form, India won the Open event as well as the Senior's title while Pakistan bagged the women's crown on the concluding day of 17th Bridge Federation of Asia and Middle East (BFAME) Championship here today.
This was also Pakistan women's first BFAME title since the championship started in 1981 while for the Indian Open team, this was their ninth success in this tournament.
Except for the women's event, India were the favourites both in the Open and Senior categories. The contest went on expected lines with the hosts clinching the issue by defeating Bahrain and Bangladesh by 117-65 and 125-28 IMPs to win Zakaria Adamji Memorial trophy and Nowzad Shaker Trophy respectively.

In the women's event, Pakistan rose to the occasion and beat last year's champions India by 94-53 IMPs to take Vinodini Goenka Trophy.
India's Open team, comprising Kiran Nadar (captain), B Satyanarayana, Sunit Choksi, K R Venkatraman, B Prabhakar and Rajeshwar Tewari, continued to display their fine form and outplayed Bahrin in the final which consisted of two sessions of 16 boards each.
India thus regained the title after a gap of two years. Beside bidding correctly, they also defended well to force a lead of 49-16 IMPs at the end of the first session which included eight IMPs they got as carry over from the semifinal.

In the second session, Bahrain improved their performance to put up some fight only to score 49 against 68 IMPs by the hosts.