WTT Youth Contender: Varghese, Rajasekaran, Ananya, and Ritvik strike gold in mixed doubles
Vadodara, Feb 28 (IANS) Jennifer Varghese and Balamurugan Rajasekaran beat the in-form Taneesha Kotecha and Preyesh Suresh in the U-19 mixed doubles event of the WTT Youth Contender Vadodara 2025 here on Friday. Ananya Muralidharan and Ritvik Gupta won the U-15 mixed doubles event. Even though the scoreline reads 3-2 (11/7, 9/11, 11/8, 1/11, 12/10), the pair never really looked like they were in any trouble, with both Jennifer and Balamurugan believing that they could win.
The fourth set would have rattled any team after losing 1/11, but not Jennifer and Balamurugan, as they quickly dusted it off. The pair found a way to foil Preyesh’s control and Taneesha’s hard-hitting cross-court shots to take home the gold.
In the second final of the day, Ananya Muralidharan and Ritvik Gupta beat Divyanshi Bhowmick and Sahil Rawat by the barest of margins to win the U-15 mixed doubles event. The scoreline of 3-2 does complete justice to how close the match was.
Each time it looked like Divyanshi/Sahil were going to run away with the match, their opponents found a way to claw back into the contest, eventually winning 3-2 and 13-11 in the decider. The winning pair had to work extremely hard for each point but finally found a way to convert to be on the right side of the competition.
The WTT Youth Contender Vadodara 2025 also kicked off the group stages for the U-19 and U-15 categories for the boys and girls on Friday, with Ankur Bhattacharjee and Sayali Wani looking to defend their top ranking. The U-11 and U-15 categories have also commenced with predominantly Indians and Sri Lankans in the draw.
The day started with the group stages of the U-15 boys, with Shouren Soman, the highest ranked in the draw, winning both of his matches to qualify for the main draw. Sahil Rawat, the runner-up of the U-17 boys, started his campaign with two wins in the group stages and will definitely be looking to change the result of the finals.
Divyanshi Bhowmick, who is ranked 29th in the world, had a similar start to her group matches as she topped the group easily. The current favourite for the event, Divyanshi, is looking to carry the momentum of her win in the U-17 to take home the U-15 as well. The group matches of the U-19 boys saw some close matches as the boys competed, but no notable upsets were moving into the main draw. Ankur Bhattacharjee looked his best as he won both of his matches in the group. The second seed, Choi Jiwook, had a similar outing as he moved to the main draw easily as well.
The last day of the event on Saturday will be witness to the finals of six events, U-11 boys and girls, U-15 boys and girls, and the U-19 boys and girls’ singles event as the WTT Youth Contender Vadodara moves into its final day.
–IANS
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