Team Herald
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PANJIM: Floyd Araujo and Pranjal Chimulkar emerged champions in the men and women singles category in the Late Manohar Dhond Memorial All Goa Major Ranking Badminton tournament at Indoor Stadium, Campal-Panjim, recently.
Top seed, Parteek Mahajan, who suffered a ligament injury during the semi-finals, conceded the men’s singles match to Floyd.
The women singles between Goa’s top two players were expected to be a close contest. But Pranjal, the graceful left hander from Ponda put up a dominant performance over the hard working Vasco girl, Anjana Kumari, to emerge victorious with a 21-16, 21-7 score line, thereby reclaiming her status as Goa’s highest ranked player in women’s category.
Top seeds Navneet Nasnodkar and Sunny Sawant won their first doubles title together as a pair with a tense 21-19, 21-16 win over Floyd Araujo and Darwin Barreto.
In Veterans 45 + Doubles, Rohan Panandikar and Ayub C.K. smashed their way to a comfortable 21-17, 21-15 win over Oscar Silveira and Leonel Fernandes.
The match of the day was the mixed doubles match, an engrossing contest which went the full distance. Anushka Kuvelkar, who has played at the National level in juniors, was partnering Navneet Nasnodkar while, Pranjal Chimulkar, who too has been in good nick partnering Sunny Sawant.
It was a tough match with fortunes fluctuating from set to set but in the end, Sunny and Pranjal prevailed, 21-11, 14-21, 21-16, to register an upset win over Navneet and Anushka, the West Zone mixed doubles runners-up of last season. Sunny and Pranjal won double crowns each.
Bharat Petroleum Manager Devansh Raghuvanshi, Organising President Gaurish Dhond, President, GBA, Richard D’ Souza; Secretary Narahar Thakur along with other officials Sandeep Heble, Sarfraz Sheikh, Laxmikant Kenaudikar, Luciano Soares and championship officials Roy Athaide and Vinayak Kamat graced the prize distribution occasion.
