West Zone Badminton

Goa’s Floyd Araujo was the lone shuttler to get a direct qualification berth at the Nationals during the recently concluded Inter State West Zone Badminton championships 2016, held at Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. With 4 berths assured for singles events and two for doubles events in each category, Floyd reached the semi finals before bowing out to Gujarat’s Adrian George 25-23, 14-21, 7-21 in a pulsating three sets match. A few other Goan shuttlers came close to qualifying but faltered at the final qualification hurdle. Dhruv Angle and Emilia Silveira went down fighting to eventual winners, Deep Rambhiya and Rashi Lambe (Maharashtra), in Under 19 Mixed Doubles semis. They lost 21-19, 13-21, 16-21. In Under 19 Girls singles quarters, Goa’s Anjana Kumari was 2 match points up against Janvi Khanna from Gujarat, but lost 21-19, 20-22, 11-21. Aashrun Gautam(Goa) lost his way from 6-2 up in the decider to suffer a 21-13, 17-21, 12-21 loss to Anirudha Mayekar( Maharashtra) in Under 19 Boys singles quarters. In Women doubles semis, Goa’s top pair, Anushka Kuvelkar and Pranjal Chimulkar, went down fighting to Vaishnavi Bhale and Shruti Mandada (Maharashtra), losing 18-21, 21-14, 14-21 in 3 closely fought sets. In Junior Mixed Team championship event, Goa Team lost 3-0 to Chhattisgarh in the quarters while in Senior Mixed Team championship, Goa Team lost to Maharashtra 3-0 in the semis to secure a third place finish. Our member Anil Painguinkar did a fabulous job as a Manager, regularly posting news, information and updates over the Social media and whatsapp. He performed his tasks to perfection and was a great motivation to the players and officials during the entire tour.