Pickleball players from India has set the stage on fire as they won medals of all colours across different categories of the Asia Pickleball Open held at Phuket.
The Indian players are ready to rule world Pickleball; the drums have started rolling from Asia Pickleball Open 2022. In almost every category, the Indians had a podium finish.
Beginning with Snehal Patil-Vrushali Thakare’s gold in Women’s 19 Advance category, the Indian players grabbed the yellow metal in other doubles events too. In Men’s Doubles 19 Advance and Intermediate, the Indian pairs shared the podium among themselves. In Advance, the order of merit is- Deep Patel-Shail Shah (Gold), Kashyap Baranwal-Gaurav Rane (Silver), Pranav Daiphode-Aniket Durgawali (Bronze). In Intermediate, Nikhil Mathure- Yashodhan Deshmukh won gold, Divyesh Jain-Niraj Jain grabbed silver, and Himanshu Dewaskar-Suneet Mahale claimed silver. In the Men’s Doubles 19 Open category, the Indian pair of Pranav Rohira-Vanshik Kapadia won silver after their loss to world beater Tyson McGuffin and Daniel Moore.
Acclaimed player, Atul Edward along with his partner Sandeep Tawde won bronze in Men’s Doubles 50 Open category. The presence of experienced Edward in AIPA India team motivated his teammates; simultaneously, he acted as a mentor to the young talents.
In Mixed Doubles 19 Open and Advanced category, the Indian pairs shared medals among themselves. In Open, Asmi Sapra-Aditya Ruhela of Rajasthan won gold while the Jalgaon pair of Tejas Mahajan-Vrushali Thakare won silver. In Advance category, the pair of Kuldip Mahajan-Snehal Patil won gold while seasoned player Megha Kapoor along with Ram Jangid won bronze.
In one of the most engrossing finals of the tournament, Vanshik Kapadia defeated Tejas Mahajan to win the gold in Men’s Singles 19 Open. In the third-place play off match, Aniket Durgawali won the bronze by overcoming Aditya Ruhela. In Men’s Singles 19 Advance, the top three positions were claimed by Aniket Durgawali (Gold), Himansh Mehta (Silver) and Tejas Mahajan (Bronze). The Intermediate category was won by Himanshu Dewaskar. In Men’s Singles 50 Advance, Ajeet Bhardwaj won gold while Thakurdas Rohira won silver.
16-year old Snehal Patil won gold in both Women’s Singles 19 Open and Advance category, while in the Intermediate category the gold was won by another Indian, Karina Ahuja. Vrushali Thakare added another medal to her kitty after claiming second position in Singles 19 Open. Asmi Sapra won bronze in Singles 19 Advance category.
The boy brigade from Ahmedabad proved their talent as they showcased immense skill in the tournament. Purvansh Patel won gold in both U-14 and U-18 Boys Singles. The other winners are Veer Shah (Silver) and Dev Shah (Bronze) in U-18 category.
It was a roller coaster day when the Team event was played. 15 teams competed in the event, just to see at the end three Indian teams at the top.
