George, Malvika emerge as top ranked players
Hyderabad: Kiran George and Malvika Bansod emerged as the top ranked players in the respective men’s and women’s singles categories after the selection trials for the Sudirman Cup and Thomas and Uber Cup finals here on Wednesday.
The four-day trials were held under a new format employed by the Badminton Association of India (BAI). The players were ranked based on their performance before the selectors meet in a few days to pick the teams for the upcoming events.
Most of the juniors toppled the seniors during the trials with Commonwealth Games bronze-medallists N Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa finishing second behind Tanisha Crastro and Rituparna Panda in one of the major results. In men’s singles, former world no 11 Sameer Verma and former world no 13 Ajay Jayaram were ranked second and third, followed by Rahul Yadav C, 2018 SaarLorLux Open champion Subhankar Dey, Priyanshu Rajawat, Sai Charan Koya, former top 10 player HS Prannoy, Karthikeya Gulshan and Mithun M. World No 24 Lakshya Sen opted out after losing to Sai Charan Koya in group A.
In women’s singles, Aditi Bhat and 16-year-old Tasnim Mir, who won the Bulgarian Junior Open International recently, were ranked second and third, followed by Sruthi Mundada, Samiya Imad Farooqi, Ira Sharma, Riya Mukherjee, Ahsmita Chaliha, Purva Barve, Unnati Bisht. Gayatri Gopichand, daughter of chief national coach Pullela Gopichand, and her women’s doubles partner Tressa Jolly were placed third, followed by 2019 national champions Shikha Goutam and Ashwini Bhat, Sahithi Bandi and Shruthi and Ramya Tulasi and Shivani.
In men’s doubles, Dhruv Kapila and Arjun MR and Krishna Prasad G and Vishnu Vardhan G P were ranked second and third, followed by Sumeeth Reddy B/S Ghouse, Arjun George/Sanyam Shukla and Navneeth B/Sai Krishna Kumar P completing the top 5.
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