Jaipur: Top seed Manish Phogat lived up to his billing to claim his maiden men’s singles title in the Rajasthan State Ranking Badminton tournament which concluded at the Sawai Man Singh Indoor Stadium here on Wednesday.Nineteen-year-old Manish overcame mid-match slump to stop the impressive run of unseeded Kartik Jain in a well-contested summit clash.Manish, a trainee of the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bengaluru, displayed an excellent all-round performance to secure a 21-7, 16-21, 21-8 win in the final.Before entering the final, Kartik had knocked out two seeded players — Daksh Bhati in the quarters and Aryan Tyagi in the semis. However, the Jaipur lad found Manish too hot to handle despite winning the second game.As expected, the women’s singles crown was grabbed by unseeded Parul Choudhary, who outclassed top seed Suhasi Verma 21-8, 21-8 without much discomfort.Playing her first Senior State tourney, international shuttler Parul made it memorable with her maiden title at the senior category.However, top seed Parul of Churu retired in the U-19 girls singles final against Somyaa Bhatnagar. Jaipur girl Somyaa was leading 5-3 in the first game when southpaw Parul decided to concede the match citing severe pain in her legs.After finishing runner-up in the women’s singles last year, it was Somyaa’s first junior state singles title.In the U-19 boys singles final, second seed Gurtej Singh Vasir staged a remarkable comeback to down fifth seed Jangjeet Singh Kajla 17-21, 21-14, 21-9.However, Jangjeet clinched a double crown by emerging champion in the U-19 boys doubles with Arnav Sharma and U-19 mixed doubles with Kavya Swami.Manish, who was one of the chief architects of Rajasthan winning the North Zone title last year, was delighted to win his maiden men’s singles title.“It’s a very good feeling to be a state senior champion. I was the state junior champion earlier and wanted to win in the senior section as well. My opponent in the final Kartik won the second game because I was feeling tired after playing a couple of tough matches in the last few days. I hope to carry my fine form in the upcoming All India tournaments,” Manish told TOI after the triumph.Rajasthan’s top two singles players — Sanskar Saraswat and Pranay Katta — surprisingly decided to skip the tournament.Results (Finals)Men’s singles: 1-Manish Phogat bt Kartik Jain 21-7, 16-21, 21-8Women’s singles: Parul Choudhary bt 1-Suhasi Verma 21-8, 21-8Men’s doubles: 1-Aryan Tyagi-Murli Sharma bt Q-Bhuvan Singh-Raj Shukla 21-15, 21-8Women’s doubles: 3-Shairil Choudhary-Uthsava Palit bt 1-Bhawna Sharma-Suman Sharma 21-9, 21-19Mixed doubles: 1-Harsh Chaplot-Anandita Tamra bt Sachin Jhajharia-Tanisha Singh 21-13, 21-19U-19 boys singles: 2-Gurtej Singh Vasir bt 5-Jangjeet Singh Kajla 17-21, 21-14, 21-9U-19 boys doubles: 1-Arnav Sharma-Jangjeet Singh Kajla bt Gurtej Singh Vasir-Yash Soni 21-19, 21-10U-19 girls singles: 5-Somyaa Bhatnagar bt 1-Parul Choudhary 5-3 (Retired)U-19 girls doubles: 1-Mokshitha Bhardawaj-Tanishka Yadav bt 2-Aditi Sharma-Sakshi Singh 21-14, 21-18U-19 mixed doubles: 2-Jangjeet Singh Kajla-Kavya Swami bt 1-Murli Sharma-Suhasi Verma 21-19, 21-18.
