As expected, Petroleum Sports Promotion Board stormed into the final of the both the men’s (Rahimtoola Cup) and women’s (Chadha Cup) events in the 67th Inter-state badminton championship here on Thursday. Their rivals in both finals will be the Air India teams.
In the men’s semifinals, PSPB scored a 3-0 win over Maharashtra, while Air India blanked Assam by an identical margin.
There was never really any competition for international player RMV Gurusai Dutt (PSPB) against Ehsan Naqvi in the first men’s semifinal tie. Dutt carried too much firepower and kept attacking through the match. Naqvi mostly played a defensive game and was made to toil even in his 10-21 7-21 loss. In the second singles, B Sai Praneeth, playing Subhankar Dey, had to struggle a bit to win the first game at 21-19, but it was an easy second game and Praneeth won 21-12 to put his team 2-0 ahead. In the doubles, V Diju and Arun Vishnu teamed up and handed Sameer Bhagwat and Varun Khanwalkar a 21-3 21-10 defeat.
In the women’s semifinals, PSPB scored over Kerala by a 2-0 margin, while Air India defeated Maharashtra by the same score. Hosts Karnataka lost to Air India 2-3 in the men’s quarterfinals in the morning.
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