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Indian players stood tall in the recent Bahrain Air-Bahrain International Badminton Challenge, which was organised by the Indian Club in association with the Bahrain Badminton and Squash Federation, winning four out of the five categories held at the Indian Club courts.
The Level 4A event was a ranking tournament, which carried a total prize money of $15,000.
Apart from the women's doubles section, which was clinched by the German-Canadian pair of Nicole Grether and Charmaine Reid, all the other categories were bagged by upcoming Indian players led by the 18-year-old Gurusai Dutt, who outplayed Indonesia's Nugroho Saputro in straight games in the men's singles final.
Another notable victory was in the men's doubles final when 20-year-olds Akshay Dewalkar and Jishnu Sanyal rallied to down the more experienced Iranian pair of Ali Shahhosseini and Mohammed Kheradmandi.
The mixed doubles pair of Vishnu Arun and Aparna Balan surprised the more experienced duo of Diju Valiyaveettil and Trupti Murgunde, who earlier won the women's singles title.
Tournament referee Ahmad Pahlawan was all praise for the organisers led by tournament director KM Cherian and supported by the club's badminton secretary NK Raghavan. "This tournament was much better than the Syrian Challenge held earlier and had much more international participation. Bahrain's advantage is that most of the people here speak English therefore communication is not a problem."
