National Games: Praneeth, Kashyap win badminton singles title

SURAT: B Sai Praneeth finally came out from his form slump and managed to clinch the men's singles title at the National Games 2022 while ace shuttler Akarshi Kashyap continued her rich vein of form to win the women's singles title on Thursday.

At the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay (PDDU) Indoor Stadium, B Sai Praneeth of Telangana defeated Mithun Manjunath of Karnataka 21-11, 12-21, 21-16 in 63 minutes, and Aakarshi Kashyap of Chattisgarh defeated Malvika Bansod of Maharashtra 21-8, 22-20 in 45 minutes.

The Karnataka team of Ashwini Ponnappa and K Sai Prateek won the mixed doubles badminton competition. N Sikki Reddy and Gayatri Gopichand, the daughter of Indian badminton icon Pullela Gopichand, were pre-tournament favourites, and Telangana won the women's doubles championship.

In a 67-62 victory over Tamil Nadu at women's basketball in Bhavnagar, Telangana also took home the gold. Tamil Nadu defeated Punjab 97-89 in men's basketball after leading 46-42 at halftime.

Atanu Das of West Bengal, an Olympian, defeated Gurcharan Besra of Services to win the men's individual recurve gold medal later in the day. Das produced two straight tens, and a nine on the third helped him win the match.

In recurve archery, Haryana won the remaining gold medals in the men's team, women's team, women's individual, and mixed doubles competitions.

Sangeeta of Haryana won the individual final against Anishka Kumari Singh of Jharkhand to earn her state's first gold medal in the recurve events.

The final gold medal was won by the mixed doubles team of Akash and Bhajan Kaur, who defeated Gaurav Lambe and Charuta Kamalapur of Maharashtra in the shootout.

Surajit Rajbansi's diving victory on the 1M Springboard in Rajkot helped Services increase their medal total to 92. Services, the reigning champions who have own 41 golds, maintained a comfortable lead over second-placed Haryana (29 golds) and third-placed Maharashtra (24 golds).

Advait Page of Madhya Pradesh won the 800m freestyle event in swimming, and Sajan Prakash of Kerala won the 50m butterfly to give Kerala a clean sweep of the butterfly medals at the National Games.

Olympians Srihari Nataraj and Maana Patel won the men's and women's 100m backstroke events, respectively, to earn their second individual gold medals at the National Games.