Gorakhpur: Bihar’s Saloni moved into the final of women’s singles of East Zone Inter State Badminton Championships being played here. Saloni defeated Riddhima Thapa of Uttar Pradesh 22-20, 21-17 in the semifinal.
In the other match played today, Bihar’s Tabrez missed out on making the final in the senior singles category. In the semi-finals, he lost to Ankit of Bengal 16-21, 21-19, 12-21. In the mixed doubles of the same individual event, Bihar’s Ambuj Prakash and Vibha Kumari lost 21-15, 16-21, 09-21 to Uttarakhand’s Faraz and Raageshwari in a three-game match. Earlier, Tabrez had defeated Arya Manjhi of Odisha 19-21, 21-18, 21-10 in the quarterfinals. In the women’s singles of the same category, Akanksha Pandey of Bihar crashed out of the tournament after losing to Manisha Palit of Jharkhand 21-17, 08-21, 17-21.
In the boys’ under 19 category, Bihar team was seen lagging behind in the close match. Parag Singh of Bihar lost the match 11-21, 13-21 to Harsh Tomar of Uttar Pradesh in an easy match. Saloni, who reached the final, defeated Sukanya of Bengal 21-11, 21-16 in the quarter-finals. In the senior doubles, the pair of Tabrez and Akash Thakur lost the match 16-21, 11-21 against Himanshu and Sohail of Uttarakhand.
In the women’s doubles of the same category, Simran Singh and Akanksha lost 15-21, 11-21 to Muskan and Sayani of Bengal. In junior boys’ doubles also, Parag Singh and Ranveer Singh lost 13-21, 15-21 to Abhijeet and Swaraj of Odisha. The result of the girls’ doubles was also similar where the pair of Saloni and Sara Kausar could not beat the Bengal pair of Sayani and Shreya and they lost the match 14-21, 20-22.
