National Games 2022: Sai Praneeth & Aakarshi Kashyap clinch badminton gold in singles competition

Top seed B Sai Praneeth of Telangana and Chhattisgarh's Aakarshi Kashyap produced superlative performances to claim the men's and women's singles badminton gold medals respectively in the National Games here on Thursday.

While Praneeth, a former world championships bronze medallist, had to work hard for his 21-11 12-21 21-16 victory over Karnataka's Mithun Manjunath in the men's singles final, Aakarshi saw off top seed Malvika Bansod of



Maharashtra 21-8 22-20 in the women's singles summit clash.

Thirty-year-old Praneeth's success meant that Telangana grabbed three gold medals in badminton. They had won the mixed team and women's doubles titles earlier. Praneeth dominated the opening game, jumping to an 8-2 lead and never looking back.

However, Mithun came back stronger in the second game but eventually could do nothing but acknowledge that he was outplayed.