Malvika, Pratul reign supreme in All India Senior Ranking

Nagpur teenager Malvika Bansod and the seasoned Pratul Joshi claimed the top honours in the All India Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament by clinching the women's singles and men's singles titles here today.
The 17-year-old Malvika culminated her giant-killing run by upstaging seventh-seed Vaishnavi Bhale 21-14, 21-17 in the final at the Sports Stadium.
Malvika had earlier upstaged second seed Shriyanshi Pardeshi 21-15, 15-21, 21-7 in the semifinal.
Top seed Pratul Joshi justified his billing in the men's singles with a hard-fought victory over 12th seed Kartik Jindal 21-15, 11-21, 21-18 in the final.
Reserve Bank of India's Meghana Jakkampudi and Air India's Dhruv Kapila were the other show stealers in the tournament claiming a double crown each.

Meghana, 22, who hails from Vijayawada and her RBI teammate Poorvisha S Ram won the women's doubles defeating the third seeded pair of Vaishnavi Bhale and Anura Prabhudesai 21 -19, 21-14, while Dhruv and Andhra Pradesh's G Krishna Prasad clinched the men's doubles title by overcoming M Arjun Kumar Reddy and Gouse Shaik 21-13, 21-13.

The pairing of Meghana and Dhruv proved to be a potent combination in the mixed doubles as they upstaged Sri Krishna Sai Kumar Podile and Rutuparna Panda 22-10, 21-10 in the final.
In All India Sub-Junior ranking tournament at Gulbarga, Uttarakhand's Anupama Upadhyaya made a bold dash for the under-15 girls singles title by stunning top seed Tasnim Mir in the semifinals today.

In a battle of 13-year-olds, Anupama sneaked past Gujarat's Tasnim 19-21, 21-18, 21-18 at the Chandrasekhar Patil Indoor Stadium.
Anupama, who is also the sixth seed, will take on Maharashtra's Tara Shah in the final. The fourth seed Tara also came through a tough examination by fifth seed Vijetha Harish from Karnataka before winning 17-21, 21-17, 21-14.
The boys under 15 duels were relatively easy affairs as top seed Pranav Rao Gandham got the better of fourth seed Pranav Katta 21-15, 21-12 to set up a title clash with second seed S Sankar Muthuswamy.
Tamil Nadu's Sankar ended the challenge of third seed Pullela Sai Vishnu, son of acclaimed badminton coach P Gopichand, 21-16, 21-9.

In the under-13 cateogry, Assam's Ankita Gogoi upset sixth seed Samayara Pawar by staging a superb comeback to win 10-21, 21-18, 21-15. In the final, the 12-year-old will meet second seed Mansa Rawat, who defeated Haryana's Jiya Rawat 21 -12, 21-11.
The boys singles semifinals went according to script although third seed Gagan was stretched by Karnataka's Satvik Shankar 22-20, 16-21, 21-15. His final opponent will be top seed Sanskar Saraswat who downed sixth seed Neer Nehwal 21-19, 21-17.