Former junior national champion Tanvi Lad today defeated top seed Arundhati Pantwane and set up summit clash with Rituparna Das in singles event of the All-India Senior Ranking Badminton tournament here.
Tanvi, who finished runners-up at the Swiss International Challenge badminton tournament last year, outsmarted Maharashtra's Arundhati 21-13, 20-22, 21-6, in a riveting semi-final match.
Third seed and World number 67 Tanvi prevailed over Arundhati in the first set and then conceded the second, before coming back strongly in the deciding set, to send the tournament favourite packing back home.
Tanvi began the match with great determination by pocketing the first set 21-13, which boosted her morale, especially playing against Arundhati, who had little challenge from her opponents in the earlier stages of the tournament.
Having conceded the first set to Tanvi, Arundhati roared back to take the close-fought second set 22-20, but could not maintain the tempo in the deciding set. She was literally mauled by Tanvi 6-21 as the Air India girl played some magnificent badminton.
Before reaching semifinals, Arundhati had defeated Mudra Dhainje and Tanvi trounced Neha Pandit 22-20 21-14, in quarterfinals.
In the second women's singles semifinal, Rituparna thumped fourth seed Sayali Gokhale 21-17 22-20.
In quarterfinals, Sayali defeated Aditi Mutatkar 21-12 22-20 and Rituparna thrashed Rasika Raje 21-7 21-18.
Tanvi will meet Rituparna in finals tomorrow.
