Asian Junior Champion Lakshya Sen along with mixed doubles pair of Shlok Ramchandran and Shriyanshi Pardeshi put up a brilliant show to guide the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to its seventh Inter State-Inter Zonal Badminton Championships title here Monday.
AAI registered a narrow 3-2 win over Railways in a thrilling final of the Yonex-Sunrise 74th edition of the tournament.
The 17-year-old Lakshya battled for 55 minutes before he could subdue Subhankar Dey 21-17 21-17 in the men's singles clash to start off AAI's challenge with a bang.
In a face-off between two rising women's singles stars of the country, Aakarshi Kashyap notched up a sublime 21-12 21-14 win over Railways' Anura Prabhudesai to hand AAI a 2-0 lead.
Just when it looked like AAI was cruising to victory, the Railways put up an incredible fightback.
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The men's doubles pair of Kabir Kanzarkar and Hemanagendra Babu held their nerves to eke out a tight 21-18 17-21 21-18 win over Shlok Ramchandran and Chirag Sen.
In women's doubles, Riya Mookerjee and Anura Prabhudesai rose to the occasion with a commanding 21-8 21-8 triumph over Pardeshi and Sneha Santhilal.
Pardeshi soon managed to brush aside that setback and joined forces with Ramchandran to get a 21-9 17-21 21-8 win over Kanika Kanwal and Akshay Raut and fetch the vital deciding point for AAI.
The winners were awarded prize money of Rs 3.5 lakhs and the runners-up Rs 2.5 lakhs. The third and the fourth-placed teams got Rs 2 lakh each for their performances at the Inter-Zonals.
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