NANTES
The Indian women's badminton duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto clinched the Nantes International Challenge title defeating Hung En-Tzu and Lin Yu-Pei of Chinese Taipei 21-15, 21-14 in just 31 minutes.
The pair was initially trailing 0-4 at the Salle Metropolitana de la Trocardaiare but rallied well to level the scores at 10-10, and finally won the first game 21-15. The second game saw the pair display even greater dominance. After breaking the tie at 3-3, Ashwini and Tanisha hit a remarkable seven-point winning streak.
However, India suffered a setback in the mixed doubles final, where Tanisha and K Sai Pratheek, who had advanced through the qualifiers to reach the final, fell short against the Danish duo of Mads Vestergaard and Christine Busch 21-14, 14-21, 17-21 in 51 minutes.
The International Challenge tournaments are not part of BWF World Tour series. ''A win hasn't been on the cards for a long time for me, so it feels really great. Tanisha and me have been playing since January, so it is great to win,'' said Ashwini.
On partnering Tanisha after having a long association with Sikki Devi, Ashwini said, ''Sikki and I played for a long time but we had got stagnant a bit. We couldn't go beyond a particular set of results.''
''So, it was good for the two of us to split. She (Sikki) is doing well in mixed doubles and I'm trying to do something new as I'm not young anymore. So wanted to play with a younger player and Tanisha fits the bill,'' added Ashwini.
