Former national champion B Sai Praneeth to clash with Mithun in National Games badminton final

SURAT: Former national champion B Sai Praneeth of Telangana will face Karnataka's Mithun Manjunath in the Men's Singles badminton final of the 36th National Games here on Thursday.

Top-seed Malvika Bansod of Maharashtra will take on second-seed Aakarshi Kashyap of Chhattisgarh in the Women's Singles summit clash, offering a potentially exciting encounter.

In the Men's semifinals, played at the PDDU Indoor Stadium here on Wednesday, Sai Praneeth downed M Raghu of Karnataka 21-12, 21-19 while Mithun was clearly the dominant player in his 21-9, 21-11 victory over Gujarat's Aryamann Tandon.

"I felt happy with the way I played my strokes. They came off nicely," Sai Praneeth said, after his victory.

Aryamann Tandon, who became the first Gujarat badminton player to win a National Games medal, could not find a way past Mithun on Wednesday.

In the Women's final, Malvika Bansod was once again pushed to the brink, this time by Aditi Bhatt of Uttarakhand. However, the top seed banked on her experience to put behind her second game reversal to win 21-10, 19-21, 21-13.

Aakarshi Kashyap had a far easier outing as she trounced Karnataka's Tanya Hemanth 21-9, 21-15.

The other big players involved in semifinal action were Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy who recently stopped playing women's doubles together. IANS

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