Siril Verma, Ashmita Chaliha win in badminton tourney

Siril Verma and Ashmita Chaliha overcame stiff competition from their respective opponents to finish on top of the podium at the Yonex Sunrise All India Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament at the Pullela Gopichand Academy today.

Siril, the 2015 world junior championship runner-up who took on Sourabh Verma in the men's singles final, winner of 2016 Chinese Taipei Masters, went down in the opening game 18-21 but came back to pocket the second game 21-16.

With the scores levelled, Siril stepped on the gas in the decider and gave no chance to his more fancied opponent and took the game 21-8 to win the match in 51 minutes.

The 16th seeded Ashmita scored a pulsating victory over third seeded Sai Uttejitha Rao to emerge winner in the women's singles event.

Sai, who came into the tournament at the back of a title win in Bangalore last week started the match as clear favourite but could not overcome a spirited challenge from Ashmita.

Ashmita won the opening game 21-16, but conceded the second game 14-21. But she held on to her nerves and displayed great tenacity to win the deciding game 21-15 to go atop the podium.

Earlier, the experienced women's doubles pair of Aparna Balan and Sruthi K.P registered a stunning comeback 19-21, 21-19, 21-18 victory over Sanyogita Ghorpade and Prajakta Sawant to come out on top, while the combination of Krishna Prasad G. and Dhruv Kapila beat Arun George and Sanyam Shukla 24-22,21-13 in straight games to win the men's doubles event.

Elsewhere, the pair of Nanda Gopal K. and Sanjana Santosh outclassed the duo of Dhruv Kapila and Meghana Jakkampudi 21-16, 13-21, 21-17 to emerge winners in the mixed doubles competition.

"This was the last senior ranking tournament, on the basis which we will select few young players for the upcoming Asian Games. The selection committee will meet tomorrow to select the squad and along with our top players, the selectors will take in consideration the performance of the players in this tournament as well as the one that concluded in Bangalore last week," Himanta Biswa Sarma, president of Badminton Association of India said.