Shuttle silver for Duminda and Thusara

BADMINTON: The Sri Lankan combination of Duminda Jayajody and Thushara Edirisinghe won a silver medal at the 10th South Asian Games badminton individual championships worked off at the Sugathadasa indoor stadium in Colombo yesterday.

The Sri Lankan pair went down to India's Rupesh Kumar and Sanev Thomas in straight sets 21-16, 21-10 in the men's doubles tournament final.

After a promising start where they really stretched their opponents to the maximum the Sri Lankan duo failed to consolidated their position and just could not make a match of it during the crucial second set.

The Sri Lanka badminton team thus finished the individual events with a total of four bronze medals and one silver medal with the team championship scheduled to commence at the same venue today.

India of course dominated the competition as they made a clean sweep winning the men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and the mixed doubles events respectively. In the men's singles final the top seed Chetan Anand defeated his countryman Nikhil Kanetkar in straight sets 21-14, 21-12.

In another all India final top seed Trupti Murugunde had the better of teammate B. R. Meenakshi in straight sets 21-17, 21-14 to clinch the women's singles title. In the women's doubles final bottom seeds Gutta Jwala and Sarah Kurien of India defeated their teammates Balan Aparna and B. R. Meenakshi in a three setter 21-18, 21-23, 21-12.

The mixed doubles title also went to the Indian combination of Diju Valiya Veethi and Gutta Jwala who defeated their teammates Thomas Kurian and Balan Aparna in straight sets 21-11, 21-13.

- (C.D)