Kaushal Dharmamer clinches men's singles title at Maldives International Challenge

In Badminton, Indian shuttler Kaushal Dharmamer clinched the men's singles title at the Maldives International Challenge with a straight-games win over Siril Verma in Male yesterday.

The 23-year-old from Mumbai, who won the Myanmar International Series earlier this month, registered a comfortable 21-13, 21-18 victory over his compatriot in a match that lasted 35 minutes.

The final day of the competition saw Indians competing for the title in four of the five events. However, apart from Kaushal all others ended on the losing



side.

In the women's doubles event, the duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy ended as runner-up after going down 10-21,

21-17, 12-21 in a hard fought battle to the Japanese pair of Sayak Hobara and Natsuki Soni.

Saipratheek Krishnaprasad and Ashwini Bhat went down 11-21, 15-21 to Thailand's Chaloempon Charoenkitamorn and Chasinee Korepap in the mixed doubles final. Men's doubles pair of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla lost 9-21, 20-22 to top seeds Keiichiro Matsui and Yoshinori Takeuchi from Japan.