Machangada A. Laksh Chengappa, a promising badminton player from Mysuru city, emerged victorious in the U-19 badminton singles category at Khelo India Youth Games 2024. This prestigious event, marking its sixth edition under the Indian Government’s Khelo India initiative, concluded on Jan. 31.

With a participation of over 5,600 athletes from across the nation, the event took place from Jan. 19 to Jan. 31, hosted in four cities of Tamil Nadu. The badminton singles competition was held in Chennai from Jan. 27 to Jan. 30, where Laksh demonstrated his prowess by defeating Ansh Negi from Uttarakhand.

Laksh secured a victory with a score of 21-17 in the first set and maintained the momentum in the second set with a score of 21-13, ultimately clinching the gold medal in the U-19 badminton singles title. Laksh showcased consistently exceptional performances throughout 2023 in U-17 & U-19 categories. His outstanding achievements include a remarkable feat in winning All-India Sub Junior National Ranking (U-17) Championship held in Bengaluru.

His impressive medal-winning performances for the year 2023-24 are a bronze medal in the U-17 All India Sub Junior National Ranking held in Lucknow from June 20 to 27, 2023, a gold medal in the South Zone Championship held in Coimbatore from Aug. 11 to Aug. 14, 2023.

Laksh won a gold medal in the Inter-Zonal and Junior National Championship (U-19) held in Bengaluru from Sept. 7 to 8, 2023, a gold medal in the All India Sub Junior National Ranking U-17 held in Bengaluru from Nov. 28 to Dec. 5, 2023.

Laksh is in Class 10, studying through the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). He was trained by the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy and is now set to undergo training at the Badminton Association of India’s National Centre of Excellence in Guwahati.  He was also trained at Sports Park by Aroon Pemmaiah (Head Coach) and B.P. Bheemaiah (Senior Coach).

Laksh is the son of Machangada B. Aiyappa (Roshan), a coffee planter from Kottageri in Balele, South Kodagu and Prarthana Uthappa. They live in Vijayanagar 4th Stage, Mysuru. While Aiyappa is a hockey player who has represented Karnataka across various Hockey India Senior Men’s National Championships, Laksh’s mother Prarthana is a basketball player and now works for Railways.

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Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy pair beat World No. 1 Indonesian pair 17-21, 21-13, 21-14 in Men’s Doubles final to clinch Korea Open Super 500 Badminton title on Sunday.

The Indian pair, after losing the first set, showed remarkable improvement to down the top seeds Fajar ALfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto. The ace Indian duo had entered the final with a thrilling straight-game win over the world number two Chinese pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang on Saturday.

The World No. 3 Indian pair notched up a 21-15, 24-22 win over the second-seeded Chinese in a 40-minute duel at the Jinnam Stadium. It was Satwik and Chirag’s first win over the Chinese pair following two earlier defeats.

Playing their fourth final of the year, the World No. 3 Indians rallied their way to a 17-21 21-13 21-14 win over the two-time world championships bronze medallists Alfian and Ardianto in a thrilling summit clash of the Super 500 Badminton Tournament.

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M.J. Mohammed Zaid, a II PUC student of Trinity College, Mysuru, who represented Karnataka State at the 66th National School Badminton Championship/Tournament held at Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh recently, has secured 2nd place in Badminton. The 19-year-old is the son of M.K. Jaleel, a resident of Mysuru.

Due to the COVID pandemic, the Madhya Pradesh Government School Education Department, in collaboration with the Sports and Youth Welfare Department, had organised the 66th National School Games, after a gap of three years.

The event is conducted by the School Games Federation of India, featuring around 3,476 athletes from across the country participating in 20 sport disciplines, out of which about 1,100 players participated in Hockey and Badminton competition at Gwalior between June 8 and 12.

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With the COVID-19 pandemic halting all sport activities, India’s former Chief Badminton Coach Vimal Kumar yesterday urged the Government to allow the Olympic-bound athletes to continue their training after conducting the required tests.

Following the respective directives of the Talengana and Karnataka Governments, the Pullela Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad and Prakash Padukone Academy in Bengaluru have been shut down for two weeks.

Rio silver medallist P.V. Sindhu, men’s Singles player B. Sai Praneeth and Men’s Doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy have so far assured themselves of a berth at the Tokyo Olympics.

“I feel sad for the sports community. They follow healthy lifestyle, they have good immunity unlike general public. So I believe the Government should look at ways to test these athletes who have already qualified and allow them to train,” Vimal told.

“If it was some other year I wouldn’t have said so but it is an Olympic year, it comes after every four years. So put them through constant testing and even if some test positive I believe they will recover in two weeks time.”

More than 7,000 people have been killed globally by the deadly virus, while the number of infected has swelled to more than 1,75,000. In India, over 100 people have so far tested positive apart from three deaths.

The affliction has led to either cancellation or postponement of all sports events the world over in an Olympic year. In India, the shooting World Cup and Indian Open Golf has been postponed so far, while badminton’s India Open was also deferred after the Badminton World Federation (BWF) suspended all World Tour and sanctioned events.

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The Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty ended up as runners-up at the French Open Badminton Tournament after they lost the summit clash in straight games against World No. 1 pairing of Marcus Fernaldi and Kevin Sukamuljo.

In what turned out to be a one-sided final, the Indian duo was outclassed 18-21, 16-21 in just 35 minutes by the top seeds from Indonesia on Sunday. In the opening game, Satwik and Chirag lagged behind from the start, giving a 9-4 lead to their opponents. The Indian pair, however, tried their way to crawl, but were still trailing at the mid-game break.

After the break, there was no stopping for the top-ranked Indonesian pair as they made the Indian duo struggle and went on to clinch the first game 21-18. In the second game, the story was much similar as the World No.1 pair showed their class and easily went on to win 21-16, thereby clinching the top honours.

Despite the loss, the pair’s effort was commendable as this was the first time that an Indian men’s doubles pair had reached the final of World Tour 750.

The Indian duo, which claimed its maiden Super 500 title at the Thailand Open in August this year, had a decent run in Paris as they beat World No. 2 Indonesian pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan in the second round before outclassing higher-ranked Japanese pair Hiroyuki Endo-Yuta Watanabe and Danish pair Kim Astrup-Anders Rasmussen.

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Badminton is a very popular sport in the world sporting scene and India has been faring well in the international circuit.

The achievements of stars like Prakash Padukone, Syed Modi, Gopichand and now Saina Nehwal, P.V. Sindhu, Srikanth have inspired many youngsters to take up this sport. Our city’s youngster S. Bhargav has done everyone proud with his feats in the junior level at the South Zone and State level. Bhargav won the boys U-19 singles and doubles titles. Representing Karnataka, he finished runner-up in the Team event of the South Zone Inter-State Badminton Championship 2019 at Kalaburagi. He is our ‘Star This Week’.

Bhargav is the son of K. Somasundara and R. Anitha, residents of Mysuru. Having taken up professional badminton, he is pursuing his education through open schooling format. Encouraged by his parents and the Mysore District Badminton Association (MDBA) and his coach, Bhargav has made steady progress in the sport and he is now the top player in the State junior level.

At the recently held Karnataka State Junior Championship in Udupi, Bhargav won the title in the U-19 Boys singles and doubles events. He reached the semi-finals in the men’s singles event.

In the state ranking tournament conducted by CUCT during August, this year, Bhargav finished runner-up in the U-19 boys singles and doubles events and entered the semi-finals in the men’s singles event.

Bhargav taking part in the Yonex Sunrise State Ranking Badminton Tournament held at KBA, Bengaluru in July this year, won the boys U-19 singles and doubles titles.

Encouraged by his parents, coach and S.G. Prabhu, this talented youngster has been making steady progress in this sport and has the potential to reach greater heights in the days to come.

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Thathapanda Jyothi Somaiah, daughter of Thathapanda Dally Somaiah and Pookunji Somaiah (Thamane Chettolira) has left for Poland to represent India in World Seniors Badminton Tournament 2019. The tournament will be played from Aug. 4 to 11.

The 2019 BWF World Senior Championships, officially BWF World Senior Badminton Championships Katowice 2019, is a tournament which will be held at Spodek in Katowice, Poland.

This is an individual championship with men’s and women’s singles and doubles, and mixed doubles events. The age categories are divided as: +35, +40, +45, +50, +55, +60 +65, +70 and +75.

The World Senior Championships is a prestigious individual event for players and the winners of each category is awarded a gold medal and crowned World Senior Champion in their particular age category. The runner-up gets a silver medal while the third place winner gets a bronze medal. Jyothi studied in Government Primary School, Maragod and Junior College, Madikeri. She graduated from of FMKMC College, Madikeri and did her B.Ed at Sarvodaya College, Virajpet.

Jyothi has the credit of being a Kodavathi to take part in Republic Day Parade at Delhi in 1984. She has worked as an announcer on AIR, Madikeri.

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Mysuru lad and second seeded, M. Raghu beat Anirudh Satish 21-12, 21-12 and entered the final in the Men’s Singles event in the on-going Yonex Sunrise State Ranking Badminton Tournament in Bengaluru yesterday.

Raghu sets a title clash with top-seed Hemantha Gowda.

Results

Men’s Singles

Semi-finals — M. Raghu bt Anirudh Satish 21-12, 21-12; Hemantha Gowda bt S. Bhargav 7-21, 21-11, 21-17.

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P.V. Sindhu survived a scare before making the semifinals but Saina Nehwal was thoroughly outplayed in her straight-game quarterfinal loss on a mixed day for India at the Singapore Open Badminton Tournament here Friday.

Rio Games silver-winner Sindhu defeated World No.18 and 2017 BWF World Junior Championship bronze-medallist Cai Yanyan of China 21-13, 17-21, 21-14 to set up a meeting with former World Champion Nozomi Okuhara.

It is Sindhu’s second semifinal of the season, following a last-four finish at the India Open last month. The second-seeded Okuhara, hailing from Japan, didn’t break much sweat on her way to a 21-8, 21-13 win over sixth seed Saina, a bronze-medallist at the London Olympics.

Sindhu broke off at 5-5 in the opening game to earn the bragging rights but her Chinese rival came back strongly in the second game, opening up a lead of 11-6 at the break.

The Indian fought back superbly to narrow the lead to 15-16 before Cai marched ahead to take the match to the decider.

In the third game, Sindhu once again found her bearings and surged to a lead of 11-5 before the interval. The Indian continued to move ahead and closed out the match comfortably in the end.

In contrast, Saina, who had defeated Okuhara in their last three meetings and also enjoyed a 9-4 advantage ahead of this clash, fell apart against the Japanese in a lop-sided clash.

Okuhara jumped to a 9-0 lead, a gap which Saina failed to breach, collecting only eight points in the first game.

In the second, Saina rose to 4-0 but Okuhara clawed back at 6-6 and then turned the tables, reaching 11-8 at the breather.

The Japanese then moved ahead at 12-11 and didn’t look back.

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World No.1 Tai Tzu Ying of Taiwan has reached the final of Singapore Open 2019 with a 15-21, 24-22, 21-19 win over Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi.

A brilliant match where Yamaguchi tried her best to reverse the result of Malaysia Open final and played brilliantly but in the end, a few mistakes in the end and Tai Tzu just lifting
herself and the Taiwanese emerges as the winner.

The other semi-final between P.V. Sindhu and Nozomi Okuhara was on when we went to Press.

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