SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, July 25: Ranchi district has emerged as a champions generating centre in Jharkhand as in the state senior and under-19 championship concluded in Dumka three days back, the state capital players swept all the titles barring men’s singles.
Only Shantanu Sharma of Seraikela won the men’s singles title while the players of Ranchi dominated in all the events and clinched the trophy. Shantanu Sharma maintained his supremacy and retained the title for the second successive year.
In the annals of Jharkhand badminton, this was the first time when not a single player of Jamshedpur was able to win a trophy. Though some star junior girls players did not participate.
Ranchi’s Manisha Rani Tirki also maintained her supremacy by winning the women’s singles title while other players dominated in other events in fashion.
In fact, the Residential Badminton Training Centre has emerged as the champion-generating house as its students emerged winners in three events, runners up in two events and several players entered the semifinals stage.
Niraj Kesri of the Centre won boys under-19 singles and pairing with Harshit Raj bagged the doubles title too. Yuvraj Kumar and Deepak Mahto of the Centre had reached the semifinal stage of the event.
Emerging star player Yogita Bora of Residential Badminton Training Centre belying all predictions of badminton pandits became girls under-19 singles champion for the first time.
Priyanshu Tirki of the Residential Centre became runner-up in men’s singles while two other players Emamanual J Kujur and Niraj Kesri entered the semifinal.
In the mixed doubles pair of Yogita Bora and Emmanual J Kujur emerged runners up.
Moreover, Ranchi’s Sajan Kumar also joined in state champions club by winning the mixed doubles title of the under-19 event pairing with Shruti of Dhanbad and secured a berth in the Jharkhand team.
A badminton expert of Ranchi said that of course state Centre’s players gave outstanding performance but credit goes to seasoned coach Bharat Shah who guided them to achieve the goal.
