KOCHI, Dec 18: If three ever was a prize for brilliance in the BPL All-India Senior Masters badminton tournament, it would have gone to Nikhil Kanetkar of the BPL-Padukone academy. For, he did catch the few hundreds of spectators and his rival, the No 1 seed Pullela Gopichand of AP, spellbound for a little over an hour before going down 18-16, 11-15, 10-15 in the final of the men's singles competition.

Gopi Chand, who picked up the winner's purse of Rs 26,000, said later though he had long been practising with Kanetkar, he had never seen the 18-year-old play as well as he did today.

In contrast, the women's singles final was completely one-sided, top seed Aparna Popat of Karnataka needing only 19 minutes for her 11-5, 11-1 win over second seed Neelima Choudhary of Air-India. Aparna was richer by Rs 20,000 and Neelima won Rs 14,000.

Aparna trailed initially in the first game at 3-5 as she took time to adjust to the flight of the bird in a mild breeze across the court.

Taking a 4-0 lead, Kanetkar fell in arrears at 6-9 and 9-13 in the first game before he tied the score at 13-all with an angular finish at the net which drew the applause of his famed rival. Again, he trailed 0-4 in the tiebreaker before he beat Gopi for speed with his drives to win the game in 25 minutes.

Kanetkar ran Gopi close in the second at 10-all before committing many unforced errors to lose the game in 20 minutes.

An erratic Kanetkar at the net surrendered a 6-3 lead int he decider and allowed Gopi to race to 11-6. The national champion had to literally fight for every point before taking the last game in 22 minutes. The men's doubles title went to Vinodkumar and Rajeev Bagga who beat Markose Bristow and George Thomas of Kerala 18-16, 10-15, 15-6 in an exciting match. This was the second title for the pair this season after they got together only a few months ago.

In the women's doubles final, Madhumita Bisht and Sindhu Gulati of Railways defeated Nazneen Karimi and Firoza Batliwala of Maharashtra 15-2, 15-4.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.