The Hindu : Abhinn Shyam in final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 06, 2003

Sport

Sport - Badminton

Abhinn Shyam in final

Mumbai June 5. The badminton buffs of the city got an opportunity to witness a lovely bout between the country's top shuttler Abhinn Shyam Gupta and Railways' J. B. S. Vidyadhar at the NSCI courts on Thursday.

Glimpses of aesthetic play were seen in a semifinal spread over three games.

The top seed Gupta was as usual tossing the bird deep and setting up openings. He manipulated the first game sufficiently well to win it.

A game down Vidyadhar became more aggressive at the net and applied pressure on Gupta in the second, a key factor that helped him take the match to the final set.

It was now that Gupta demonstrated his class, all by sticking to the basics and opting for the conventional game of tossing deep and giving himself enough room to play a variety of shots.

A couple of drops earned him a passage into the final of the National Sports Club of India sponsored Rs. 4.06 lakh prize money all India senior badminton championships.

Gupta's opponent in the final for the Rs. 50,000 cash prize will be Karnataka's Anup Sridhar who tamed PSCB's Nikhil Kanetkar 15-4, 15-10.

The top two seeds in the women's section will compete in the final on Friday.

R. Meenakshi romped home in style against Manjusha Kanwar, but Shruti Kurien had to sweat it out against the upcoming Saina Nehwal of Andhra Pradesh.

* The results:

Semifinals: Men: singles: Abhinn Shyam Gupta (PSCB) bt J.B.S. Vidhyadhar (Rlys) 15-11, 7-15, 15-13; Anup Sridhar (Kar) bt Nikhil Kanetkar(PSCB) 15-4, 15-10.

Women: singles: B.R. Meenakshi (PSCB) bt Manjusha Kanwar (PSCB) 11-7, 11-3; Shruti Kurien (PSCB) bt Saina Nehwal (AP) 11-8, 11-0.

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