HYDERABAD, February 9: That top seeds P Gopi Chand and Aparna Popat will emerge champions was a forgone conclusion before today's finals of the 62nd Bristol Senior National Badminton championships here.In a way, that robbed the event much of its sheen. But there was one man who bestowed upon himself the responsibility of making these championships worth remembering, the man who stood between Gopi and the title for 40 tantalising minutes at the Lal Bahadur Indoor Stadium here -- 19-year-old Abhinn Shyam Gupta from Air-India.
In fact, Abhinn Shyam, who lost the first game 15-8, came threateningly close to silencing both Gopi Chand and his supporters in the second game when he looked better than the defending champion. For the first time in a week, Gopi was seen muttering to himself, questioning line calls and gazing blankly at the ceiling, perhaps indicating that the breeze from fans on the dias was affecting his game.
Abhinn Shyam jumped from 4-4 to 8-4. At that point, he must have been devising agame-plan to build on that advantage and Gopi on how to stop his resurgent rival. And in the next couple of minutes, it became clear that it was Gopi who arrived at the right formula.
After being caught up with at eight, Abhinn Shyam managed to win two more points but he smashed one into the net, one beyond the baseline and saw one meek dribble failing to clear the net. And, Gopi was again the master of the situation, leading 13-10.
And then ensued a pitched battle. Service changed hands more than half a dozen times. And yet, it was the best phase of the whole match that also saw Abhinn Shyam winning the longest of rallies with a brilliant acrobatic return that caught Gopi miles away.
That was also the last time Abhin won a point in the match as Gopi went ahead and won 15-8, 15-11.
TAME AFFAIR: The women's final turned out be a tame affair as Aparna Popat proved for one last time here that she has left others far too behind with a 11-1, 11-4 win.
The first game was over even before the crowdsettled down. Aparna won six points in a row, then allowed Manjusha to open her account and then closed out the match with another five straight points.
The defending champion fared a little better in the second. She pushed Aparna into the corners and dropped at the net until they were level at 4-4. But that was when Aparna zoomed away, gathering points at will on the way to victory.
RESULTS (all finals)
Men's singles: P Gopi Chand (AP) bt Abhinn Shyam Gupta (Air-India) 15-8, 16-11; 3rd place: Srikanth Bakshi (Rlys) bt Dipankar Bhattacharjee (Assam) 15-13, 15-11.
Women's singles: Aparna Popat (Kar) bt Manjusha Kanwar (Del) 11-1, 11-4; 3rd place: Pooja Parekh (Rlys) w/o P V V Lakshmi (AP).
Women's doubles: Madhumita Bisht/Sindhu Gulati (BAI) bt P V V Lakshmi/P V Sarada (AP) 15-9, 15-7.
Mixed doubles: U Vinod Kumar/Madhumita Bisht (BAI) bt Parag Modi/Vinay Shetti (Mah) 15-10, 15-3.
Men's doubles: U Vinod Kumar/Rajeev Bagga (BAI) bt Jaseel P Ismail/Vijaydeep Singh (BAI) 15-5, 15-10.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
