Mithun, Anupama reign supreme

Pune: Mithun Manjunath brought a week of playing tough matches to a pleasant end as the Karnataka shuttler defeated Priyanshu Rajawat to clinch the men’s singles trophy in the 84th National Badminton championships at Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex here on Tuesday.Calm throughout the final, Mithun registered a comfortable 21-16, 21-11 over Priyanshu in the final.In the women’s final, Almora’s Anupama Upadhyaya, representing Haryana, clinched a thriller against her senior Aakarshi Kashyap in her first senior nationals final.Mithun, 24, who had entered the final after beating fourth seed Kaushal Dharmamer in the Rd 32, last edition’s champion Sourabh Verma in quarters and world No. 19 and second seed Kidambi Srikanth in the semifinals, showed he was a worthy winner on Tuesday.The Prakash Padukone academy player kept things simple and didn’t show any desperation to get points. On the other hand, Priyanshu, whose aggressive game won him the semifinals against Harsheel Dani on Monday, looked in a hurry.“My plan was to keep the shuttle in play and not hit any shot that could go out. I let him hit the shots which eventually got me points,” said Mithun.Priyanshu, 21, tried to hit the shuttle hard. Most of his smashes went out of the sidelines and the Gopichand Academy player couldn’t manage to get a good lead in any phase of the match.Mithun, who has been training under former player Sagar Chopda in Bengaluru, said meditation helped him execute his plans well. “I used to overthink and imagine the whole match even before the match started. Along with working on my fitness after the Covid lockdown, I also started yoga and meditationwhich has been helping me,” Mithun said.In the women’s final, experienced Aakarshi, 21, fought hard but lost 22-20, 17-21, 22-24 to 18-year-old Anupama.“I was winning points by engaging her in long rallies. I shouldn’t have tried to score easy points. I made a mistake there,” a tearful Aakarshi said after the defeat.Aakarshi seemed calmer while Anupama was visibly tired during the third game. Despite huffing and puffing at the end, tied at 18-18, Anupama managed to lure Aakarshi to hit shots that couldn’t clear the net, including the last serve - a flick that was misjudged by Aakarshi.“I tried to finish the match quickly and lost some points, but I then decided to not go for the quick points and stay for longer,” Anupama said.In the women’s doubles, No. 1 seed Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand defeated Kavya Gupta and Deepshikha Singh 21-10, 21-9. The men’s doubles final was won by Kushal Raj and Prakash Raj (fourth seeds) as they overcame third seed pair Deep Rambhiya and Akshan Shetty 8-21, 21-19, 21-8. Hemanagendra Babu and Kanika Kanwal beat Siddharth Elango and Khushi Gupta 21-17, 21-16 to lift the mixed doubles trophy.