Bulgarian Junior Open | Indian shuttlers end with 3 gold in six-medal haul
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Indian colts finished the Bulgarian Junior International Championships on a great note as they won three gold, one silver, and two bronze medals. While Samiya Imad Faruqui won gold in the women’s singles event, the duo of Edvin Joy and Shruti Mishra clinched it in the mixed doubles category.
Faruqui was up against second seed Anastasiia Shapovalova of Russia in the finals and as expected, she had to earn the gold the hard way. After going down 9-21 in the first game, the Indian shuttler came back with straight wins of 21-12, 22-20.
The mixed doubles duo of Joy and Mishra also had a tricky task against No. 2 seeded British pair of Brandon Zhi Hao and Abbygael Harris. However, they pulled off an upset by stunning the higher-seeded duo 21-14, 21-17.
The third and final medal for India came in the women’s doubles, where the Indian pair of Tanisha Crasto and Aditi Bhatt extended their excellent form against top seed Bengisu Ercetin and Zehra Erdfm from Turkey, by beating them 21-15, 18-21, 21-18 in the finals.
However, that was the end of India’s gold run on the final day. While the men’s doubles combination of Ishan Bhatnagar and Vishnuvardhan lost to went down in the finals to the top-seeded British pair of William Jones and Brandon Zhi Hao 19-21, 18-21 to win a silver medal, the other shuttlers in the singles event were even worse.
Malvika Bansod went down 13-21, 15-21 to No 2 seeded Anastasiia Shapovalova in the semis to settle for a bronze medal, while Meiraba Luwang lost 19-21, 21-12, 18-21 to Georgii Karpov of Russia for the same.
