Not many players in Delhi’s badminton circuit dare to take Bhaskar Chakraborty lightly, especially after the 15-year-old stretched men’s top seed Davinder Dhillon to a third game in the quarter-finals of the Pramod Mahajan Memorial badminton tournament last week.On Wednesday though, Ashish Sharma, a regular with Chakraborty in his age group, dared to take his favoured opponent on and then outwitted him. Moreover, Sharma’s long-limbed stature had a bigger role to play than his ‘second seed’ qualification in the 23-21, 17-21 and 21-17 under-19 semi-final scoreline. “My height obviously helped me at the net and in reaching for the smashes. But the win also had a lot to do with Bhaskar’s errors. He was going for the finishing shots without taking proper position. In the second game he changed his approach playing the tossing and dropping game and won. But in the third game, he was doing exactly what he did in the first, making things easier for me. Even at the net he was a bit repetitive, without any across-cuts. I kept on playing the waiting game and went for the smashes only when I was in a position to play them,” says Sharma. He adds: “I owe everything to my coach Arun Khanna. My father is a salesman and the gross income is just about enough for the household. As far as badminton goes, the shuttles, the racquets and all other accessories are provided by my coach.”Coming back to talking about his victory, Sharma insists on not branding this one as an upset, unlike the rest present at the AIIMS badminton courts. After all, on head-to-head he is 2-1 up. “I haven’t exactly won a world championship,” he laughs. “I had beaten him in the under-16s in the JD Tytler tournament last year in what was our first meeting. Then he came back to better me in the Pramod Mahajan U-16 finals, the very next tournament. But this was the first time we played in the U-19s,” Sharma adds.He even goes on to say: “Now I feel maybe he fears playing against me.” Ask Chakraborty about that, and he responds: “I was indeed a bit scared whenever he had those one or two-point leads. At those points I went for the finishing shots, most of which were faults, and the game slipped out of my grasp. I kept on losing confidence throughout the match.”But Sharma refuses to let Wednesday’s result come in the way of his appreciation for Chakroboty's game. “Still, Bhaskar is the best player among us. He has a different pace about his game. And he’s as good a person off the court,” he concludes.Semi-final results: Girls U-13: Gaouri Asija bt Aakanshi 21-14, 21-11, Noor Chatwal bt Kanika Kanwar 21-13, 21-14; Boys U-13: Ankit Chikkara bt Rohan Kapoor 21-14, 21-15, Rishabh Sahdev bt Gaurav Deswal 24-22,17-21, 21-19;Girls U-16: Shreya Agarwal bt Nisha Nain 21-8, 21-3, Girishma Anand bt Ananya Nagar 21-12, 21-16; Boys U-16: Abhilash Sharma bt Surindar Rathi 21-17, 21-15, Jayank Ahuja bt Nitish Arora 21-18, 21-18; Girls U-19: Nidhi Tiwari bt Girishma Anand 21-14, 21-07, Shradha Srivastava bt Shreya Aggarwal 21-19, 21-11 Boys U-19: Ashish Sharma bt Bhaskar Chakraborty 22-20, 17-21, 21-17; Mens: Srikant Bakshi bt Davinder Dhillon 21-13, 21-19, Rudra Kaushik bt Abhinav Prakash 19-21, 21-13, 21-16.
