National Games: Malvika bags silver

Nagpur,

Top seed Malvika Bansod clinched a silver medal at the ongoing 36th National Games being played in Surat, Gujarat, on Thursday.

In the women’s singles summit clash, Nagpur’s Malvika went down fighting to Chhattisgarh shuttler Aakarshi Kashyap.

Aakarshi overcame the tough late challenge from Malvika to register a hard-fought 21-8, 22-20 victory in 44 minutes.

After losing the first game quite easily Malvika bounced back in the second game. The world No. 41 Malvika was even leading for most of the second game and threatened Aakarshi. Malvika was leading 5-2 and then increased her lead to 9-6 with her brilliant all-round display. Determined to take the match into the decider, the 21-year-old southpaw Malvika raised her level of play and raced to a commanding 18-14 lead.

With a cushion of four points, it seemed Malvika would wrap up the second game and restore parity. However, world No. 47 Aakarshi Kashyap had different ideas and did not want to lose her grip in the match. The diminutive Aakarshi not only levelled the scores 18-18 but also took a handy two-point lead (20-18) with a six-point burst.

Although Malvika saved a couple of match points, Aakarshi shattered the hopes of her long-time rival by sealing the issue in her favour on the third match point.

With this defeat, Malvika could not emulate the feat of her senior Nagpur player Arundhati Pantawane.

The veteran Nagpur shuttler Arundhati had won the National Games women’s singles gold medal at the Ranchi National Games held in 2011.