All India senior Ranking meet: Bansod, Manjunath win singles titles

Hyderabad: Second seed Malvika Bansod and eighth seed Mithun Manjunath registered convincing straight games victories to clinch the women's and men's singles titles at the All India Senior Ranking badminton tournament here on Thursday.

The mixed doubles combination of Rohan Kapoor and Sanjana Santosh bagged their second straight crown at the meet.

In women's singles final, Bansod upset top seed and last weeks senior ranking tournament winner Aakarshi Kashyap 21-15, 21-9 in 42 minutes while Mithun stopped former world junior No. 1 Aditya Joshi's run from the qualifying round 21-15, 21-4 in the men's singles summit clash.

On a day when all the finals were decided in straight games, the wildcard combination of Kapoor and Sanjana were the only winners from the Chennai leg last week to finish on the top of the podium once again as they packed off Dhruv Rawat and Shikha Gautam 21-14, 21-13 in just 33 minutes to underline their overall development over the last year.

The women's doubles title went to the makeshift combination of Simran Singhi and Khushi Gupta, who came together for this tournament after the former's regular partner Ritika Thaker was ruled out due to injury.

Khushi and Simran defeated Telangana's Vennala K and Shriyanshi Valishetty 21-16, 21-13 to clinch their first senior national title. In the men's doubles final, Kerala's Ravikrishna PS and Sankarprasad Udayakumar made it to their second consecutive final after having to qualify for the main draw.

But just like in Chennai, they failed to cross the final hurdle as the experienced combination of Krishna Prasad Gagara and Vishnuvardhan Goud P got the better of them 21-9, 21-12 in the last match of the day. 2012 Olympic medallist Saina Nehwal was present at the prize distribution as the champions received an overall prize money of 10 lakh.