PANJIM: The Goa girls paring of Anura Prabhudesai and Anushka Kuvelkar kept State’s flag flying high ensuring a doubles title by marching into the finals of the Women and Junior Girls (U-19) and will take on the might of defending champions Maharashtra in both categories of the Inter-State West Zone Badminton Championships 2014, organised by Goa Badminton Association in collaboration with the Sports Authority of Goa, at Indoor Stadium, Campal.
In the junior girls semi-finals for Shafi Quereshi Cup, Goa outplayed Gujarat by two sets to none to enter the finals. In the singles, Goa’s national player and WZ silver medalists Anura Prabhudesai got the better of Gujarat’s Anoushka Parikh, India doubles third seed 21-15, 17-21 and 21-13 in a well fought battle.
In the following doubles, Anura Prabhudesai partnered Anushka Kuvelkar, India’s double third seed to beat Gujarat’s Anoushka Parikh and Riya Gajjar in straight sets 25-23, 21-16.
The Goa camp was elated on the junior girls success and Coach Vinay Kamat disclosed that this is the first time in 46 years that Goa has made it into the West Zone finals with our junior girls.
Goa ace pair of Anura Prabhudesai and Anushka Kuvelkar repeated the feat in the women semi-finals and will also meet Maharashtra in the final for the Chadha Cup.
In the semi-finals, Goa ace Anura repeated her junior girls feat beating Anoushka Parikh once again 21-17 and 21-18 while in the doubles, the pair of Anura Prabhudesai and Anushka Kuvelkar beat Shenan Christian and Priya Gajjar 17-21, 21-6,21-14.
Earlier, in its opening match, the Goan girls beat Chhattisgarh 2-0 in the juniors. In the singles, Anura lost her first set to Chhattisgarh’s Akarshi Kashyap 19-21 but rallied strongly in the next two sets to win 21-17, 21-15.
In the doubles, Goa’s ace pair Anura and Anushka easily bagged the scalp of Tanvi Shukla and Diksha Choudhari 21-9, 21-15.
In the other semis, Maharashtra outplayed Madhya Pradesh 2-0 to enter the final. In the singles, Maharashtra’s Vaishnavi Iyer defeated Sanjeevani Marathe 21-7, 21-10 while in the doubles Revathi Devasthale and Karishma Wadkar got the better of MP’s Sanjeevani Marathe and Nishita Gupta 21-11, 21-10
In the Narang Cup for junior boys, Goa bowed out in their very first outing losing to Gujarat. Gujarat beat Goa 2-0 with Goa’s Tejan Fallary losing tamely to Aryahann Tandon 12-21, 8-21. In the doubles, misery for Goan boys continued, with Tejan Fallary and Sanath Kamat giving in to Aryahann Tandon and Hemendra Rajput 10-21, 6-21.
Goa campaign for the Rahimtoola Cup in the men also came a cropper, losing in straight set to a strong Maharashtra force 3-0. Goa’s Parteek Mahajan failed to live up to the high expectations and lost to Sarang Lakhanee 9-21, 16-21 while in the second singles, Govind Navelkar lost to India’s fourth seed Subhankar Dey 11-21, 11-21.
The doubles pair of Goa Parteek Mahajan and T Krishna were beaten by Kabir Kanzalkar and Akshay Raut 15-21, 7-21.
Earlier, the championship was inaugurated by Chief Secretary B. Vijayan in the presence of Executive Director, SAG Sandip Jacques, President of GBA Richard D’Souza, Secretary, GBA Gaurish Dhond, BAI Observer Shetty and others.
Union Minister of State for Tourism Shripad Naik will draw the curtains on the championship today with the finals scheduled 9 a.m.
