Guarav Rege fights his way back

Gaurav Rege justified his top billing by making it to the finals of the Mumbai Suburban District badminton championships at Khar Gymkhana. He will meet second seed Varun Majumdar in the final.

Gaurav was stretched by calm and composed lefthander Aditya Pandya before the former showed his composure to win 21-14, 11-21, 21-11.

Left-hander Pandya tested Rege time and time again with some delectable and deceptive strokes at the net, especially in the second game. After being outplayed in the first game, Aditya made Gaurav chase the bird all over the courts by varying the pace and then beat him at the net with net-hugging drop shots. However, in the decider, Gaurav was very aggressive as  Aditya made valiant attempt to stop him, but in vain.

The lanky Nagpur shuttler Rege shifted his base to Mumbai after becoming the men’s singles district champion in 2015. He has been training at Uday Pawar Badminton Academy in Goregaon and reaping benefits of advanced and gruelling training to earn good results.   

Majumdar didn’t have to sweat much in packing off Purav Surymurthy 21-14, 21-10 in the other men’s singles semi-final.

Women’s top seed Pooja Devlekar had easy passage to the final by outclassing Mekhla Ambekar 21-16, 21-18 in straight sets. Pooja will meet Nakshatra Hanchate in the final who found it tough against Kairavi Thakore before prevailing 21-5, 14-21, 21-11.

Mekhla however enjoyed some success by reaching the finals in the under-19 girls category after beating Sanvi V M 21-10, 21-17. She will meet Anamika Singh in the final who beat Mahak Nayak 21-14, 21-12.

In the boys U-19 category, top seed Sarthak Rokade beat Siddharth Bhuta 21-10, 21-16 to set up summit clash with Atharva Joshi who defeated Prajwal Hundekar 21-11, 23-21.