1. Sourabh Verma Lifts Russian Open Badminton Trophy.
Former national champions Sourabh Verma and Rituparna Das continued their impressive run as they progressed to the quarterfinals of the $75,000 Russia Open BWF Tour Super 100 tournament here on Thursday.
Also making it to the final eight were Mithun Manjunath, Subhankar Dey and Vrushali Gummadi in singles, while the men`s doubles pair of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla and the two mixed doubles combination of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg and Saurabh Sharma and Anoushka Parikh also entered the quarterfinals.
Coming back after recovering from an injury, Sourabh, who made the cut for the Asian Games after proving his worth at the selection tournaments, trounced Russia`s Sergey Sirant 21-11, 21-9 in a lop-sided contest. The eighth seeded Indian will face Israel`s Misha Zilberman, seeded third.
Rituparna, who won the India International Series and Polish International in 2016, had to dig deep into her reservoir to eke out a 13-21, 21-17, 21-19 win over second seed Ying Ying Lee of Malaysia.
The 21-year-old from Haldia, who recovered from an injury-laden 2017 to clinch her first title this season at the All India Senior Ranking Badminton tournament in Bangalore, will square off against American qualifier Iris Wang next.
2. Yasar Dogu International, Turkey: Bajrang Punia Wins Gold.
Bajrang Punia continued his fine form, winning a second gold medal of the month when his opponent Andriy Kvyatkovskyy conceded the 71kg freestyle final on Sunday due to injury at the Yasar Dogu International as Indian wrestlers returned with 10 medals, including seven by women, from the ranking event in Istanbul, Turkey.
In the women’s competition, Pinki was the lone gold medallist in the 55kg category with her 6-3 win over Ukraine’s Olga Shnaider in the final but Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik endured a disappointing result as she failed to reach the medal round in the 62kg category.
Bajrang, who earlier this month won a gold at Tbilisi Grand Prix in Gerogia, had earlier exacted revenge for his loss at the World Championship to Mustafa Kaya, by beating the Turkish wrestler by technical superiority (15-4) in the 70kg quarter-finals. He then edged out Iran’s Yones Emamichoghaei 10-10 in a thrilling semi-final.
Sandeep Tomar, meanwhile, finished with a silver medal after losing 2-8 in the 61kg final against Iran’s Mohammadbagher Yakhkeshi. Tomar, who was the last Indian to book a berth for the Asian Games by winning the re-scheduled trials, had overcome some strong opponents en route the final – Belarus’ Andreyeu Uladzislau (7-4), Azerbaijan’s Parviz Ibrahimov (3-1) and Hazanzada Mircalal (6-4).