Pickleball Nationals: Top seeds Rahul, Priyanka win 35+ section singles

Greater Noida: Men’s singles top seed Rahul Belwal defeated fellow Delhi player Santosh Bhagat in three games to win the 35+ category title of the fourth IPA Pickleball Nationals at the Bennett University campus here on Saturday.

The match between Belwal and unseeded Bhagat was expected to be one-way traffic, but the giant-killer Bhagat turned up brilliantly and fought till the end before Belwal completed a 11-4, 10-11, 12-10 victory.

Belwal, with a DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating) rank of 4.924, who had come into the final with a 15-3 win over fourth-seed Yuvraj Singh, was brilliant in the opening game and denied any space to Bhagat.

But the latter, who had come into the summit showdown after a brilliant 15-11 victory over second-seeded Samrat Ghosh in the semi-finals, managed to induce errors from Belwal and bagged the second game 11-10 to take the match into the decider.

The third and decisive game looked like one-way traffic for most of the time as Bhagat looked all set to pull off an upset over Belwal after taking a 7-0 lead. But the top seed turned the tables on him, and despite being four match points down, came back strongly to win the third game 12-10 and take the title.

Priyanka bags 35+ women’s title

Top-seed Priyanka Mehta lived up to her billing to win a thrilling three-game encounter against second-seed Monica Menon in the 35+ women’s singles final. Having bagged the opening game 11-2, Priyanka looked all set to sail to the title before Monica’s resilience saw her win the second game 11-5. The decider turned out to be a close contest, but Priyanka bagged it 11-9 to win the title.

Kavita wins 50+ women’s singles title

Third-seed Kavita Khanna upstaged top-seed Babita Langthasa in the women’s 50+ singles final. Coming into the final on the back of a commanding win in the semi-final, Langthasa was expected to dominate but Khanna ran away with the opening game 11-3, and despite a strong challenge from the top-seed in the second game, won it 11-9 to bag the title.