The top seeds – men’s Gaurav Rege and women’s Pooja Devlekar won through their respective semifinals in contrasting fashion on their way to the title rounds of the Mumbai Suburban District badminton Championships, hosted by Khar Gymkhana at their courts here. While the Uday Pawar coached Gaurav was stretched by calm and composed lefthander Aditya Pandya before the former triumphed 21-14, 11-21, 21-11, Pooja was all over the court, playing with aplomb to beat Mekhla Ambekar 21-16, 21-18.
Gaurav Rege
However, the day’s best contest turned out to be one was between men’s hard-hitting top seed Gaurav and lefthander Aditya. , who time and again beat the favourite with some delectable and deceptive strokes at the net, especially in the second game. After being outplayed in the first game, Aditya made Gaurav chase the bird all over the courts by varying the pace and then and beat him at the net with net-hugging drop shots. However, in the decider, Gaurav was very aggressive as the fast tiring Aditya made valiant attempt to stop him, but in vain.
Pooja Devlekar-
In fact the penultimate day ‘s proceedings were devoid of any major upsets as all the top two seeds – barring two – in the various age groups duly made the finals.
Results of all the semi finals:
Men’s singles: (1)- Gaurav Rege bt Aditya Pandya 21-14, 11-21, 21-11; (2)- Varun Majumdar bt Purav Surymurthy 21-14, 21-10..
Women’s singles: (1)- Pooja Devlekar bt Mekhla Ambekar 21-16, 21-18; (2)- Nakshatra Hanchate bt Kairavi Thakore 21-5, 14-21, 21-11.
Girls U-19 singles: Mekhla Ambekar bt Sanvi V M 21-10, 21-17; (2)- Anamika Singh bt Mahak Nayak 21-14, 21-12.
Boys U-19 singles (1)- Sarthak Rokade bt Siddharth Bhuta 21-10, 21-16; Atharva Joshi bt Prajwal Hundekar 21-11, 23-21.
Girls U-17 singles: Siya Singh bt Mahek Nayak 21-17, 21-11; (2)-Anamika Singh bt Gauri Kadam 21-14, 21-9.
Boys U-17 singles:(1)- Sushant Ravva bt Devish Jain 21-12, 21-11; (2)- Sarthak Rokade bt Atharva Joshi 21-10, 24-22.
Boys U-15 singles: (1)- Saransh Gajbhiye bt Parth Khandelwal 21-14, 21-13; (2)-Harsh Sharma bt Lakshya Chouhan 21-9, 21-10.
Girls U-15 singles: (1)- Alisha Nayak bt Kamya Ravi 21-8, 21-10; Siya Singh bt (2)- Manali Parulekar 21-15, 21-13.
Boys U-13 singles (1)- Avighna Gadgil bt Mahar Mehendale 21-7, 15-21, 21-12; Oskar Mathew bt (2)- Kabir Barot 17-21, 22-20, 21-19.
Girls U-13 singles (1)- Nirmitee Gajjbhiye bt Sunaira Jain 21-6, 21-12; (2)- Shanya Jain bt Sarika Sinha 21-9, 21-12.
Boys U-10 singles: Siddharth Hegde bt Vivaan Bohra 21-14, 21-15; Pritam Manihar bt Jinay Patel 21-14, 21-14.
Girls U-10 singles: Juie Parab bt Devashree Mehta 21-5, 21-8; Arya Mestry bt Sanjay Urankar 21-12, 231-12.