The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : Ernakulam beats Thiruvananthapuram to retain title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 26, 2005

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Sport - Badminton

Ernakulam beats Thiruvananthapuram to retain title

KOCHI: With Ernakulam being the base for some of the best badminton players in the country, one would expect the district to steamroller all opposition in the State.

But surprisingly, Ernakulam had to die several deaths against Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday evening before retaining the men's inter-district title in the State championship at the Rajiv Gandhi indoor stadium here.

Ernakulam had to sweat and slog this evening before winning the team title for the fourth consecutive year.

The host district won the first two singles in the five-match tie rather comfortably through Antony Jacob and former State champion K.A. Aneesh.

But in the end, P.A. Alfred and Antony had to battle for nearly an hour to beat the promising V. Arun and S. Manoj in the deciding doubles match. In the women's open events, continuing the trend of lopsided games, top-seeded Merit George and Miral George, who helped Thrissur to the women's team title on Wednesday, along with P.C. Thulasi and M. Sruthi marched into the semifinals.

The results: Inter-district events:

Men: final: Ernakulam bt Thiruvananthapuram 3-2 (Antony K. Jacob bt Ayyappan Krishnan 15-1, 15-10; K.A. Aneesh bt S. Manoj 15-9, 15-4; Aneesh/Joemon George lost to Ayyappan/Tariq 3-13, (rtd. hurt); P.A. Alfred lost to V. Arun 2-15, 13-15; Alfred/Antony bt Arun/Manoj 7-15, 15-12, 15-12).

Semifinals: Ernakulam bt Kollam 3-0 (Antony bt Vineeth Krishnan 15-2, 15-12; Aneesh bt Shibu 15-7, 15-2; Antony/Alfred bt Pradeep/Shibu 7-15, 15-4, 17-14); Thiruvananthapuram bt Kozhikode 3-1 (Manoj lost to T.K. Jamsheed 12-15, 8-15; Ayyappan bt Arjun Prasad 15-8, 15-1; Arun/Manoj bt Nidhin Rehman/C.C. Lenin 15-12, 15-13; Aravind Shanker bt Sidharth Saboo 15-8, 10-15, 15-12).

Women's singles (quarterfinals): P.C. Thulasi (Tsr) bt Zina Raveendran (Tvm) 11-2, 11-1; Miral George (Tsr) bt R. Sreeju (Klm) 11-1, 11-4; M.Sruthi (Kkd) bt Nimalakshmi (Tsr) 11-7, 11-2. — Principal Correspondent

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