Ashmita Chaliha, Siril Verma clinch All India Senior ranking titles

Assam’s Ashmita Chaliha and former junior world number 1 ASS Siril Verma registered contrasting wins in the final to be crowned women’s and men’s singles champions respectively in the Yonex Sunrise All India Senior Ranking Badminton tournament in Goa on Sunday.

Ashmita defeated second seed Malvika Bansod 21-18, 21-17 in just 35 minutes in the women’s singles final while Verma fought back from a game down to beat C Rahul Yadav 15-21, 21-10, 21-13 to clinch the men’s singles title.

The All India Ranking tournament in Bengaluru last week and Goa this week were also selection meets for the Asian Team Championship to be held next month. Akarshi Kashyap and Mithun Manjunath has won the women’s and men’s titles in Bengaluru.

In the doubles events, national champions Sikha Gautam and Ashwini Bhat K enhanced their chances of making it to the Indian team after getting the better of K Maneesha and Rutuparna Panda 21-17, 13-21, 21-15 in an hour and 20 minutes.

Panda and Maneesha had won the women’s doubles title in Bengaluru, beating the national champions.

Panda, however, made amends in the mixed doubles as she partnered G Krishna Prasad to defeat Sunjith S and Shruthi KP 21-10, 21-17 in the final.

The men’s doubles combination of Dhruv Kapila and M R Arjun showed the power of youth as they defeated veterans V Diju and Rupesh Kumar 21-13, 21-7.