Madhya Pradesh’s Shubham Prajapati, the 16th seed, produced an inspired display as he shocked former junior national champion Daniel Farid in a three-set thriller and won his maiden National-ranking men’s badminton title at the Manorama Indian Open here on Sunday.
Daniel, the fourth seed, began strongly and it looked like the match would be a repeat of the lop-sided women’s final won by international Tanvi Lad earlier.
After winning the opening set comfortably, Daniel raced to a 13-7 lead in the next, winning six points in a row. But his game mysteriously fell to pieces after that, while at the other end, Shubham kept winning point after point.
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Whatever Daniel did, went wrong, There were moments when the 19-year-old looked around, searching for answers but the roaring crowd only confused him.
His smashes and drops were wide or too long while Shubham, coached by SAI’s Atul Joshi, happily realised that whatever he did were turning out to be winners.
Meanwhile, Tanvi’s strategy against Sri Krishna Priya in the women’s final was rather simple. She did not have to try too man things to outwit her opponent. A simple high lob to Sri Krishna’s forehand corner followed by a smash or a drop was enough to bring her the points.
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Slim and light, Sri Krishna appeared to have a better badminton body but the 23-year-old Tanvi, the national runner-up, was too fast and strong for her 19-year-old opponent.
With former England coach Thomas John sorting out the problems with her footwork after she moved from the Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad and landed at his Bengaluru base a few months ago, World No. 63 Tanvi raced to 11-3 lead in the opening game.
After notching up a huge lead Tanvi ran into problems with her net game and this allowed Sri Krishna to get away with a decent score in the opening set.
The second game was a cake-walk for Tanvi.
The results (finals):
Men: Shubham Prajapati (MP) bt Daniel Farid (Kar) 12-21, 21-19, 21-11. Doubles: K.T. Rupesh Kumar & Sanave Thomas (Ker) bt K. Nandagopal (CAG) & Sanyam Shukla (AI) 21-19, 21-14.
Women: Tanvi Lad (Pet) bt Sri Krishna Priya (Tel) 21-16, 21-8.
Mixed doubles: Sanyam Shukla & J. Meghana (AI) bt Shivam Sharma (UP) & V. Harika (AI) 21-7, 21-8.