Rajasthan men shuttlers win maiden North Zone title to make history; U-19 boys finish runner-up losing to Delhi

JAIPUR: Rajasthan is not a force to reckon with in badminton. They have never won a North Zone Inter-State Badminton Championship before. On Friday, however, the state’s men’s team made history by emerging champions, defeating former winners Haryana 3-1 at the North Zone Championship final in Chandigarh and paving the way for competing, for the first time, at the Senior Nationals.
After stunning defending champions Delhi with a same margin in the semi-final on Thursday, Rajasthan men maintained their giant-killing run to clinch their maiden crown.
The five-day annual tournament, organised by the Badminton Association of India (BAI), saw the participation of Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. BAI conducts zonal tournaments in seven zones and only winners of each zone, and the host state, get tickets to compete in the Senior Nationals.
With Friday’s victory, North Zone champions Rajasthan have automatically qualified for the 86th Senior National Badminton Championship scheduled to be held in Bengaluru from December 18 to 24.
This year’s zonal tournaments also assume importance as the zonal winners sealed their berths in the National Games slated to be held in Uttarakhand at the end of the year.
The summit clash between Rajasthan and Haryana was dominated by the former team executing a clinical display. Current Junior India player Sanskar Saraswat along with Pranay Katta won their respective singles to provide Rajasthan a strong start. It would have been a clean sweep had Harsh Chaplot not wasted a match-point opportunity against Haryana’s Gautam Arora. At 20-19 in the third and deciding game, Harsh only had to finish the point with a smash. Instead, he played a soft shot, which Arora retrieved to make it 20-20. Thereafter, the Haryana player won two successive points to win the second singles by a wafer-thin margin 21-14, 11-21, 20-22(1-1).
That was the only success Haryana had as Rajasthan doubles pair Denish Shrivastava-Shubham Patel regained the lead (2-1) before Saraswat delivered the knock-out punch in the third singles. The second doubles was not required as Rajasthan took an unassailable lead (3-1) in the best-of-five-match encounter.
Rajasthan coach Tribhuvan Bisht gave the credit of the historic triumph to the entire squad.
“It was a dream come true for all of us. All players delivered when it mattered the most. They knew what was expected of them and they did not disappoint at all. Beating formidable teams like Delhi and Haryana in back-to-back matches was certainly a creditable achievement. We were the underdogs, but I knew this team had potential to perform well,” said Bisht, himself a veteran national champion.
Rajasthan Badminton Association (RBA) secretary and BAI joint secretary KK Sharma termed it as a historic day.
“There is no doubt that this is a historic day for the Rajasthan badminton fraternity. Nobody bet on us to win the title, but we proved them wrong. Now we can play the Senior Nationals as well as National Games this year. When I started my regime as RBA secretary, we used to finish at the bottom of the table. Now we are on top as far as the zonal tournament is concerned,” said Sharma.
Rajasthan Under-19 boys, however, had lesser luck. They went down to Delhi in the final. This is the second year in a row that the Rajasthan junior team has had to settle for a silver medal. Last year in Jalandhar, Rajasthan lost the finals to Chandigarh.
Haryana and Chandigarh won the women’s and U-19 girls titles, respectively.
Results (Finals)
Men’s: Rajasthan bt Haryana 3-1 (Pranay Katta bt Manraj Singh 17-21, 21-17, 21-18; Harsh Chaplot lost to Gautam Arora 21-14, 11-21, 20-22; Denish Shrivastava-Shubham Patel bt Anshul Budhwar-Sunny Nehra 21-16, 21-10; Sanskar Saraswat bt Shashwat Dalal 21-12, 21-11)
U-19 boys: Rajasthan lost to Delhi 0-2 (Sanskar Saraswat lost to Sonna Ginpaul 21-19, 16-21, 14-21; Manish Phogat-Sanskar Saraswat lost to Bhavya Chhabra-Param Choudhary 19-21, 16-21).