Rituparna, Srikanth stun defending champions in Nationals

Junior national champion Rituparna Das and Thailand Grand Prix gold winner K Srikanth stunned defending champions Sayali Gokhale and Parupalli Kashyap to reach the finals of women's and men's singles competitions respectively in the 78th ATS Senior National Championship here today.
Rituparna came from behind to upset seventh seed Sayali Gokhale 13-21, 21-13, 21-14, while K Srikanth got the better of top seed P Kashyap 21-14, 21-19 in 37 minutes at the Siri Fort Sports Complex here.
Rituparna will now face second seed and pre-tournament favourite P V Sindhu, who defeated third seed Arundhati Pantawane 21-17, 21-14, while Srikanth will face off second seed RMV Gurusaidutt in the finals.

The semifinal encounter against defending champion Kashyap and challenger Srikanth was expected to be the highlight of the day.
But the defending champion was visibly hampered by the shoulder injury, which forced him to pull out of the team championship, and he could not play to his best ability against a spirited opponent.
Srikanth and Kashyap had clashed at the same stage in the last edition of the championship in Srinagar and the latter had then bulldozed his junior academy-mate into abject surrender.

But since then, Srikanth has taken big strides in the international circuit and had skipped the Macau Grand Prix Gold and Tata Open International Challenge meet in Mumbai to prepare for the nationals. This is the first time that Srikanth defeated his senior academy mate.

Srikanth was the first to get off the blocks as he won points in a cluster to open up an eight point advantage and though Kashyap managed to save two game points, the game had already slipped out of his grasp.
The second game also looked like going in the same direction as Srikanth surged to a 12-8 lead but Kashyap used all his experience to slow down the pace of the match and that helped him claw back.
But just when it looked like he could take the match into the decider, Srikanth came up with a few brilliant net dribbles to clinch the game and match with a back-hand drive.