Date:13/09/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/09/13/stories/2004091308021800.htm

Sport - Badminton

Varsha in line for double crown

KOLKATA, SEPT. 12. Varsha V. Belwadi of Karnataka is poised to pick up a double crown in the junior girls' section of the all-India junior ranking prize money badminton tournament at the SAI (Eastern Centre) here.

In sweeping into the semifinals of the singles event on Sunday, Varsha brushed aside Bipasa Sarkar of Bengal in straight games 11-3, 11-1. Partnering Soumya Padhye in the doubles, the Karnataka duo moved into the final outclassing the Bengal pair of Deepika Halder and Dolly Ghosh 15-0, 15-2.

Top seed Kaushik Pal led Bengal's charge in the junior boys' singles where all the four local lads reached the semifinals.

The results:

Junior boys' singles quarterfinals: Kaushik Pal (Ben) bt Samrat Adhikari (Ben) 15-10, 15-9; Ratikanta Saha (Ben) bt Ajay Kumar (AP) 15-3, 15-7; Sandipan Banerjee (Ben) bt Piyush Agarwal (AP) 15-11, 15-9; Rajeet Sengupta (Ben) w/o 2-Abhinav Kapoor (Mah).

Junior girls' singles quarterfinals: Kanu Agarwal (Har) bt Soumi Dutta (Ben) 11-4, 11-9; Neha Rane (Mah) bt Soumya Padhye (Kar) 11-6, 11-3; Jui Agaskar (Mah) bt Moharmala Mukherjee (Ben) 11-1, 11-4; 2-Varsha V. Belwadi (Kar) bt Bipasa Sarkar (Ben) 11-3, 11-1. Doubles semifinals: Jui Agaskar & Neha Rane (Mah) bt Pizza Bharali (Asm) & Kanu Agarwal (Har) 15-4, 15-12; Varsha Belwadi & Soumya Padhye (Kar) bt Deepika Halder & Dolly Ghosh (Ben) 15-0, 15-1.

Sub-junior boys' singles quarterfinals: Suranjan Bhobra (Asm) bt Bodhipriya Pal (Ben) 15-2, 15-1; Pusan Roy (Ben) bt Ashutosh Tiwari (Ben) 11-15, 15-10, 15-11; Dibyajyoti Borah (Asm) w/o Aditya Swami (Mah); Ratikanta Saha (Ben) bt Shubharthi Banerjee (Ben) 15-2, 15-5. Sub-junior girls' semifinals: Pizza Bharali (Asm) bt Deepika Halder (Ben) 11-8, 11-4; Kanu Agarwal (Har) bt Moharmala Mukherjee (Ben) 2-11, 11-1, 11-0.

Mini boys' singles semifinals: Sourav Chatterjee (Ben) bt Bhaskar Chakraborty (Ben) 15-1, 15-3; Amit Dey (Ben) bt Ranjoy Das (Ben) 15-6, 15-3.

Mini girls' singles semifinals: Rimita Das (Ben) w/o Kurupali Shah (Guj); Komalpreet Kaur Gandhi (Pun) bt Sheshadri Sanyal (Ben) 11-8, 11-5. — Our Special Correspondent