Gaurav stuns top seed Sameet to enter Nagpur dist men's singles final

NAGPUR: Both the finalists of the last year’s men’s singles were knocked out in the semifinals on the penultimate day of the Goel Ganga Group Nagpur District Badminton Championship at the Robertson YMCA Hall here on Monday.
While top seed and defending champion Sameet Dandawate was stunned by unseeded Gaurav Rege, second seed Ajay Dayal was outsmarted by experienced Jayendra Dhole in straight games to storm into the final.
In a battle between two youngsters, Gaurav display an inspired performance to end Sameet’s reign at the top. Cheered vociferously by the home supporters, Gaurav started aggressively and maintained his lead throughout to pocket the first game easily.
Although, Sameet, who bagged maiden double crown last year by winning both the men’s singles and doubles (with Govind Sahasrabuddhe), tried to make comeback into the match in the second game, Gaurav was always in control to wrap up the match 21-11, 21-18.
Earlier, Jayendra Dhole capitalized on the lack of match practice of his opponent Ajay Dayal to regain his spot in the men’s singles final after a year’s gap.
RESULTS
U-13 boys singles (semis): Ishan Vithalkar bt Bhupesh Jaiswani 21-18, 21-14; Sifat Arora bt Vaibhav Mithe 21-12, 21-8.
Mixed doubles (final): Jayandra Dhole-Varada Dixit bt Ankit Dubey-Shravani Pandey 21-9, 21-8.
U-10 boys singles (final): Siddhant Bawankar bt Rohit Gidwani 21-10, 21-5.
U-15 girls doubles (final): Livia Fernandez-Pavitra Somani bt Palak Thakkar-Shalomi Johnson 21-10, 21-9.
U-15 boys doubles (final): Samarjeet Pande-Gaurav Mithe bt Kaiz Dhamani-Hriday Deshmukh 21-11, 21-3.
U-10 girls singles (final): Nikkita Joseph bt Kripi Sajwan 21-11, 21-8.
U-13 girls singles (final): Ashni Joshi bt Nikkita Joseph 21-9, 21-13.
Men’s singles 40 plus (semis): Ravi Gurbani bt Raju Barapatre 21-18, 21-19; Kiran Makode bt Eknath Purohit 21-5, 21-14.
U-13 girls doubles (quarters): Livia Fernandez-Sophia Simon bt Chaitali Nayse-Shalomi Johnson1 7-21, 21-13, 21-16; Saee Jamdar-Sara Pandey bt Aditi Sadhankar/Nikkita Joseph 21-10, 19-21, 21-14; Ashni Joshi-Samruddhi Saoji bt Anusha Jaiswal-Suhani Vazirani 21 11, 21-10; Sanika Upadhya-Sanjana Patwardha bt Ananya Durugkar-Mabel Simon 21-9, 21-8.
U-13 boys doubles (quarters): Dev Rajesh-Kanad Yerpude bt Krishna-Vihan Desai 21-9, 21-5; Siddhant Bawankar-Yugandar Deo bt Sashank Kulhar-Siddh Kedia 21-8, 21-8; Sifat Arora-Vaibhav Mithe bt Ishan Vithalkar-Pranav Mohagaokar 21-14, 21-15; Bhupesh Jaiswani-Lokesh Gajwani bt Arnav Naik-Ravi Bang 21-18, 21-8.