Rohan Gurbani rallies to clinch All India Ranking U-17 Badminton title

NAGPUR: Living up to his top billing,

Rohan Gurbani

pocketed the U-17 boys' singles title in the Yonex-Sunrise All India Sub-Junior (U-15 and U-17) Ranking Badminton tournament which concluded at the Balbir Singh Juneja Indoor Stadium in Raipur (Chhattisgarh) on Sunday.


In an exciting summit clash, top seed Rohan rallied back in spectacular fashion to edge past second seed

Pranav Rao Gandham

15-21, 21-19, 21-18 in 47 minutes.

Like Saturday's semifinal, 16-year-old Rohan did not get the best of starts. In fact, he was just a couple of points away from losing the final. After losing the first game at 15-21, Rohan was down 16-19 in the second game and defeat was staring at him.

However, like a true champion Rohan bounced back strongly and reeled off five successive points to pocket the second game at 21-19 to level the game score at 1-1.

The third and deciding game too was an edge-of-the-seat thriller. Rohan was trailing initially as left-hander Gandham was in full flow with his powerful smashes.

The Telangana lad was cruising towards the triumph when he took a handy lead of three-four points in the decider. At 16-18, it looked it was all over Rohan. But similarly like the second game, Rohan did not panick and continued to play his heart out.

He succeeded too as he found his shots at the right areas. In a last-ditch effort, Rohan generated lot of power in his shots to earn those crucial points.

Rohan, a trainee of Bengaluru-based

Prakash Padukone

Academy, finished off the match in style by grabbing five points in succession to shatter the hopes of Gandham, a trainee of Pullela Gopichand Academy.

With this win, Rohan also avenged his narrow loss in front of his home crowd when the city boy lost to Gandham few months ago at the Mankapur Stadium during the All India Sub-Junior tourney.

It was Rohan's maiden crown in the U-17 age group after winning a couple of titles in the U-15 boys singles last year.

Rohan, a Standard X student of Centre Point School, Katol Road, thanked his Padukone Academy coaches and his parents - Dr Ravi and Dr Sakshi Gurbani for victory.

"It was certainly one of my best victories. I was trailing in the last two games after losing the first. In fact, the whole week was very tough as I had to negotiate several tough opponents on way to triumph. I am happy with my first title in the U-17 group. I want to dedicate my victory to my coaches and parents," Rohan told TOI from Raipur.

Catch Rani Rampal's inspiring story on Game On, Episode 4. Watch Here!