Maharashtra Badminton League: Hard-fought win for Eagles

Inspiring Eagles notched up a tense 3-2 win over Gorgeous Gannets in the Maharashtra Badminton League on Monday. Eagles went into a 2-0 lead,after Jishnu Sanyal and Mudra Dahinje recorded straight-games wins over Varun Sarode and Karishma Wadkar in the first men’s singles and women’s singles matches. Sanyal,the league’s most expensive player,took 28 minutes to defeat Sarode 21-10,21-9,while Dahinje beat Wadkar 21-17,21-19 in 34 minutes.

Gannets roared back into the tie,with Akshay Dewalkar and Samruddha Rathore beating Abhishek Kulkarni and Aditya Pandya in the men’s doubles (21-12,21-15) before Nihar Tikekar made it 2-2 by winning the second men’s singles against Amit Kshatriya by 21-17,21-13. It came down to the final rubber,the mixed doubles,where the Eagles pair of Vignesh Dewalkar and Trupti Murgunde defeated Ankush Jadhav and Dhanya Nair 21-10,21-17.

Tuesday’s first match,meanwhile,saw Graceful Gulls romp to their third straight win,beating Lifetime Linnets 4-1. Harsheel Dani got them off to a great start in the men’s singles,with a 21-15,21-10 win over Harshad Bhagwat,before Neha Pandit pulled one back for the Linnets,defeating Arundhati Pantawane 21-17,21-17 in the women’s singles. But it was all Gulls after that. Nishad Dravid and Shlok Ramachandran prevailed in a three-game men’s doubles rubber against Sagar Chopda and Nikhil Kanetkar,winning 22-20,16-21,21-12. Manan Goenka then clinched the tie with a 21-19,21-17 win over Gandhar Marathe,before Nachiket Dhaygude and Riya Pillay made it 4-1 with a 21-18,15-21,21-15 mixed doubles win over Ishan Talwalkar and Saee Purandare.