14-year-old Unnati claims women's singles title, unseeded George wins men's competition
Odisha Open 2022
Cuttack(PTI): Teenager Unnati Hooda became the youngest Indian to win a Super 100 tournament as she beat compatriot Smit Toshniwal in straight games to claim the women's singles title while unseeded Kiran George emerged triumphant in men's singles final of the USD 75,000 Odisha Open badminton tournament here on Sunday.
The 21-year-old George prevailed over Priyanshu Rajawat
21-15 14-21 21-18 to clinch the men's singles title after battling hard for 58 minutes.
Before that, the 14-year-old Unnati produced an excellent performance to emerge triumphant in her event. Unnati won 21-18 21-11 to be crowned the Odisha Open champion for the first time.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand defeated Sanyogita Ghorpade and Shruti Mishra 21-12 21-10 to claim the women's doubles title after a 28-minute contest.
In the mixed doubles final, India's MR Arjun and Jolly suffered a 16-21 20-22 defeat at the hands of Sri Lankan duo Sachin Dias and Thilini Hendadahewa in a match that lasted 36 minutes.
Unnati, who entered the final after she surprised Indian Open finalist Malvika Bansod 24-22 24-22 in the last-four clash on Saturday, took 35 minutes to get the better of Toshniwal in the summit showdown of the women's singles at the Jawahar Lal Nehru Indoor Statdium.
Toshniwal too pulled off an upset, knocking out Ashmita Chaliha, seeded five, 21-19, 10-21, 21-17, to set up the title clash with the 14-year-old Unnati.
Unnati claimed the the first game after making a comeback and riding on the momentum, she won the second game without much difficulty as Toshniwal had no answer to her opponent's aggressive approach.
George won the opening game quite comfortably and was leading 5-3 in the initial phase of the second game, but Rajawat fought back brilliantly to take the match into the decider.
The battle was intense in the third and final game with Rajawat trying his best to not allow George have his way. However, the 19-year-old Rajawat fell short in the end as George kept his composure to win it and have the last laugh.
George had defeated Ansal Yadav, 19-21, 21-12, 21-14, while 19-year-old Rajawat scored a 21-17, 21-14 win over Kausal D in the men's singles semifinals.
On his way to the final, George also stunned third seed and the higher ranked Subhankar Dey in the quarterfinals.
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Fiery Siraj helps GT restrict SRH to 152/8
Hyderabad, Apr 6 (PTI): Mohammed Siraj bowled with fire in his belly to return excellent figures of 4/17 as Gujarat Titans restricted Sunrisers Hyderabad to 152 for eight in their Indian Premier League match here on Sunday.
Siraj dismissed struggling openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma cheaply before coming back to add two more wickets to his tally on a slow surface.
Left-arm spinner R Sai Kishore (2/24) and seamer Prasidh Krishna (2/25) too performed admirably but a wayward Ishant Sharma leaked 53 runs in his four overs to allow SRH cross 150 after they were 135 for eight at the start of the final over.
Head (8) had a fortuitous start as his edge off Siraj went past the stumps for a boundary. However, Siraj had the last laugh as the pacer got rid of the danger man from Australia when the opener flicked one for Sai Sudharsan to complete a smart diving catch at mid-wicket.
The crowd at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium found their voice after a few boundaries.
Siraj, however, had other ideas as the pumped-up seamer sent back Abhishek after the batter took the aerial route but failed to get the timing right and was caught at mid-on.
This meant the SRH openers' struggles continued in this edition of the IPL as the side reached 45 for two at the end of the power play.
Even as the visitors dominated proceedings at that stage, they faced some anxious moments when Glenn Phillips got injured. After being attended to by the physio, Phillips hobbled off the field.
Ishan Kishan (17) perished when he miscued a pull off a Prasidh Krishna short ball to deep square leg where Ishant completed the catch.
The duo of Nitish Kumar Reddy (31 off 34 balls) and Heinrich Klaasen (27 off 19 balls) tried to revive SRH innings with a fifty-run stand for the fourth wicket, a phase where GT got a few fours and a six by the South African big-hitter against Rashid Khan.
But just when SRH looked like laying the foundation for a respectable score, left-arm spinner Sai Kishore picked up the prized wicket of Klaasen whose leg stump was disturbed as he rocked back to employ the pull shot.
Reddy too perished while trying to smash Sai Kishore out of the park, leaving SRH at 105 for five in the beginning of the 16th over.
