Second seed Siddharth Nandal easily defeated Arvind Subramanian by a 63-19 (21-6, 21-3, 21-10) cumulative score, to claim the men’s singles crown in the Willingdon Catholic Gymkhana (WCG) organised 2nd All-India Open Racketlon Championship, played at the WCG courts, Santacruz.
Over 70 players from all across the country participated in this Racketlon championship, with competition consisting of four racket sports -- table tennis, badminton, squash and lawn tennis.
In the summit round, Nandal outplayed Subramanian by quickly winning the table tennis match 21-6 and then scored a 21-3 win in the badminton event to grab a 42-9 lead. He scored another 21-10 win in the squash match to clinch the match and did not have to play the tennis event.
Earlier, in the semifinals, Nandal outclassed Vikram Chaufla, winning the first three events to march to a 63-40 (21-17, 21-12, 21-11) win. Fancied and experienced top seed Ashotosh Pednekar, unfortunately suffered an ankle injury and was forced to concede a walkover to Subramanian in the first semifinal.
Pednekar, had earlier won the men’s doubles crown. He along with Monesh S. got the better of Gourav Rakshit and Siddharth Nandal 76-71 (20-22, 21-11, 15-21, 20-17) points to emerge champions.
Sanjeev Kumar lifted the men’s 45+ singles title defeating top-seed Gourav Rakshit 74-54 (21-19, 21-12, 14-21, 18-16) in the final. .
