Badminton

The tournament, organized by the Badminton Association of India (BAI), took place in Assam after a four-year gap. In the women's singles final, Anmol displayed resilience after dropping the first game, leveraging her court coverage and strategic use of angles to dominate the next two games.

On Thursday morning, Badminton tournament kicked off in the presence of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Sports Minister Govind Gaude and others at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium, here.

The badminton annals at the Asian Games have also never witnessed an Indian pair win the gold medals. On Saturday, the doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty made history by winning India's first-ever gold medal in badminton at the Asian Games.

Lakshya, seeded eighth, was the highest-ranked Indian shuttler in men’s singles in the tournament in the absence of World No.7 HS Prannoy.

The Indian pair, ranked two in the world, lost to the 13th-seeded Indonesian duo of Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Maulana Bagas 17-21, 21-11, 17-21 in an hour and eight minutes game.

With each tournament, Prannoy's star continues to rise, and his achievements continue to pile up. As of now, he stands as a testament to hard work, resilience, and an unyielding passion for the sport.

After pocketing a bronze, his first-ever medal in World Championships, at Copenhagen recently, Prannoy climbed up three spots to achieve his new career-high rank with 72437 points in the men’s singles category.

The medal got the 31-year-old into an elite list of Indian shuttlers to bag a medal at the mega event.

“What a win! Brilliant smart play and absolutely gripping performance by our #TOPScheme shuttler @PRANNOYHSPRI to take down the reigning World Champion Axelsen. Our champ perseveres coming back from a game down and commanding the next 2 games to secure a spot in the SEMIS and assuring India it's 14th medal at the #BWFWorldChampionships, Hats off for the stupendous play! On to the next one,” Anurag Thakur wrote on Twitter.

The world No.9 Indian began the semifinal clash on a strong note and clinched the opening game with an aggressive approach. But the effort of beating two former world champions in marathon encounters in the earlier rounds seemed to catch up with him as he went down to the third seed from Thailand, 21-18, 13-21, 14-21 in the 76-minute encounter.