Nagpur: The ace shuttler Malvika Bansod of Nagpur bagged a silver medal in the 36th National Games under way in Surat, Gujarat on Thursday.
The top seed Malvika was stunned by Chhattisgarh’s Aakarshi Kashyap in the gold-medal match. Aakarshi survived a second game scare, recording a 21-8, 22-20 win in the match that lasted 44 minutes. After going down tamely in the first game, Malvika pulled up her socks in the second game. Among India’s top BWF ranked women’s singles players at 41st spot, Malvika was leading for most of the time in the second game. Malvika took an early lead at 5-2 and was 9- 6 up at one stage. The left handed Malvika kept on putting pressure on her opponent and was staring at winning the second game within three points at 18-14.
A decider looked on cards. But Aakarshi, who is the fourth best ranked Indian at 47th in the world rankings, raised her game several notches against the 21- year-old top seed. She reeled in as many as six points in a row to have her first match point. Malvika fought back for a brief period but Aakarshi made sure she took the gold on her third match point.
For the records, Nagpur’s Arundhati Pantawane remains the only woman player from the city to have won gold at National Games. Arundhati triumphed in the Ranchi National Games held eleven years ago in 2011.
