Another daughter of Haryana, which is considered to be the hub of sports, has raised the name of the state in sports in Pune on Tuesday. Anupama Upadhyaya has become the Champion in the Badminton National Championship 2023. For the first time in the history of Haryana, the daughter of the state has become the Badminton National Championship winner in the women's singles in the senior category.
Anupama Upadhyaya won the women's singles title for the first time. She defeated Aakarshi Kashyap 20-22, 21-17, 24-22 in the final match of the Senior Badminton National Championship 202. On this achievement, Haryana Badminton Association President Devendra Singh has announced a cash prize of Rs five lakh to the winner. He told that even before this the performance of Anupama Upadhyaya has been excellent. Anupama secured the first rank on the basis of her performance in the junior category.
Anupama had to face defeat in the first round of the first game. Aakarshi defeated Anupama 22-20 in a closely fought match. In the second round, Anupama came back and defeated Aakarshi 1-17, 24-22 in two consecutive games to clinch the title.
On the other hand, Mithun Manjunath won comfortably in the men's singles category in the Badminton National Championship. Mithun captured the title by defeating Priyanshu Rajawat 21-16, 21-11 in consecutive games. The match between the two players lasted only 38 minutes. Earlier Mithun defeated world championships silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth in the semi-finals. At the same time, in women's doubles, the pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand won the title. Top seeds Treesa-Gayatri pair defeated Kavya Gupta and Deepshikha Singh 21-10, 21-9 in straight games.
Meanwhile, S Kushal Raj and S Prakash Raj beat Akshan Shetty and Deep Rambiya. They beat them 8-21, 21-19, 21-8 to clinch the men's doubles title. In the mixed doubles final, Hemanagendra Babu and Kanika Kanwal beat Siddarth Elango and Khushi Gupta 21-17, 21-16.
However, Lakshya Sen, a Commonwealth Games 2022 men's singles champion, India's Olympic medallists PV Sindhu, and Saina Nehwal did not compete at the Badminton National Championship.