PANAJI
Floyd Araujo and Pranjal Chimulkar emerged men's and women singles champions in the Late Manohar Dhond Memorial All Goa Major Ranking Badminton Tournament organised in collaboration with Goa Badminton Association and SAG, at Indoor stadium, Campal.
Top seed Parteek Mahajan, who suffered a ligament injury during the semis, conceded the men's singles final to Floyd. The women's singles final between Goa's top two players was 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 winner with a 21-16, 21-7 scoreline, 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 CK justified their top billing as they 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 & Anushka, the West Zone mixed doubles runners-up of last season. Sunny and Pranjal won double crowns each.
Devansh Raghuvanshi (Manager, Bharat Petroleum), Gaurish Dhond (Organizing President), Richard D'Souza (President, GBA), Narahar Thakur (Secretary, GBA), GBA officials Sandeep Heble, Sarfraz Sheikh, Laxmikant Kenaudikar, Luciano Soares and championship officials Roy Athaide and Vinayak Kamat graced the prize distribution function.
