New Delhi: It was an Indian show at Amman as Snehit Suravajjula and Yashini Sivasankar beat their Indian opponents Jeet Chandra and Prapti Sen, respectively, in the Junior Boys and Girls finals to claimed gold medals in the 2017 Jordan Junior and Cadet Open.
The no.15 seed Snehit accounted for teammate Jeet Chandra, the no.3 seed, to win the title 12-10, 7-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-6. The Hyderabad lad, who turned 16 a few weeks ago, earlier caused a major second round upset when he outsmarted No. 2 seed Youssef Abdel-Aziz from Egyp 13-15, 13-15, 11-9, 11-8, 11-4, 11-4.
Placed in the opposite half of the draw, Jeet accounted for Iran’s Hamid Shams 11-9, 11-8, 11-7, 11-7 and Qatar’s Mohammed Abdulwahhab, the no.4 seed and winner in 2015 11-7, 9-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-8), prior to reserving his place in the final by beating the man in form.
He overcame colleague, Parth Virmani, the no.9 seed (9-11, 11-6, 8-11, 11-7, 11-5, 11-7); the player who earlier in the day in the second round had beaten Thailand’s Yanapong Panagitgun, the top seed (8-11, 11-8, 11-6, 9-11, 14-12, 11-8).
Following Snehit’s gold in the singles, in Junior Boys Doubles which was an all- India final, he and Anukram Jain combined well to finish with the silver. The duo went down to Manush Shah and Parth Virmani by the very narrowest of five-game margins 11-7, 11-13, 8-11, 11-6, 11-9, who clinched the gold.
Earlier in the semi-final, both Indian pairs had ended the hopes of Chinese Taipei. Anukram and Snehit had beaten Hsu Po-Hsuan and Peng-Chih (3-11, 11-9, 11-7, 7-11, 11-9) whil Manush Shah and Parth defeated Li Hsin-Yu and Wang Yi-Fan (6-11, 12-10, 11-2, 11-3).
Yashini shines
In Junior Girls, Yashini defeated Prapti 7-11,5-11,11-4,8-11,11-8,11-6,11-4 in an enthralling final to capture the title. The girl from Tamil Nadu, who won her first national ranking title last year, began the season at home well when she annexed the Central Zone title. Since then her graph has been showing an upward growth and she proved it once again at Amman on Thursday evening.
In fact, the domination of Indians in the Junior Girls’ singles was evident when four quarter-finalists—Yashini, Prapti, Kushi Vishwanath and Vanshika Bhargava—were from India. Even in team events the girls performance was praiseworthy, thanks to India A team members Priyanka Pareek and Yashini, who set the tone.
They accounted for the Jordanian duo of Lima Khater and Yara Aldmaisy 3-0before recording a similar victory against India B’s Manushee Patil and Prapti Sen. However, Yashini was tested by Manushee, being required to recover from a 0-2 deficit before emerging successful 4-11, 6-11, 11-7, 11-5, 11-6.
Defeat for India ‘B’ but when facing colleagues, Jiya Jain and Kushi Vishwanath on duty for India ‘C’ it was success. A 3-0 was the order of the day but there was a close call for Manushee who lost the first two games against Kushi before staging a recover to win 6-11, 4-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-7.
India C’s Jiya Jain and Kushi Vishwanath also tasted some success when they overcame the Thai-Jordan combination of Suthasini Sawettabut and Razan Alqrabawi 3-0.
