Naheed Divecha of Bombay Gymkhana stamped her supremacy winning the women’s singles crown in the Willingdon Catholic Gymkhana (WCG) organised 2nd All-India Open Racketlon Championship and played at the WCG courts, Santacruz. Over 70 players from across the country competed in the championship.
The experienced Divecha encountered quite a strong challenge from 15-year-old Aadirai of Coimbatore before managing to scrape through on the ‘Golden’ tie-breaker 68-67 as the total scores, after the four events (table tennis, badminton, squash and tennis) were deadlocked at 67-all (19-21, 21-4, 17-21, 11-21).
Divecha, who is a renowned badminton player, narrowly lost the opening table tennis tie 19-21. She later completely dominated the badminton event winning by a convincing 21-4 margin to gain a sizeable 40-23 lead. The talented youngster Aadira fought back by winning the remaining two events, squash 21-17 and tennis 21-11 and managed to level the scores and force the ‘Golden’ tie-breaker.
However, in the tie-breaker, Aadirai was a bit unfortunate as Divecha won the crucial match-deciding point to snatch a hard-earned 68-67 verdict and emerge champion.
Divecha enjoyed more success winning the mixed doubles title. The top-seeded pair of Divecha and Ashutosh Pednekar defeated the second-seeded combination of Roma Dutia and Adit B Patel by a narrow 60-59 (15-21, 21-6, 21-11, 3-21) points difference in the final.
Results
Women’s singles: Naheed Divecha beat Aadirai 19-21, 21-4, 17-21, 11-21. 3rd-4th Place: Swapnal Chakrabarty beat Gayatri 13-21, 21-0, 21-11.
Mixed doubles: 1-Naheed Divecha/Ashutosh Pednekar beat 2-Roma Dutia/ Adit B Patel 15-21, 21-6, 21-11, 3-21. 3rd-4th Place: Aadirai/ K.A. Aadith beat Gayatri/ Ved Prakash Pandey 21-5, 21-14, 21-5.
