National Games: Harmeet Desai, Sutirtha Mukherjee win men’s, women’s singles gold

Harmeet exhibited good control and fine attacking play to script 11-8, 11-4, 11-7, 11–8 victory over Soumyajit Ghosh of Haryana to win the title here on Saturday.

Harmeet Desai in action during the 36th National Games at Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Indoor Stadium in Surat on September 22, 2022. | Photo Credit: A.M.Faruqui

Gujarat’s Harmeet Desai and Sutirtha Mukherjee of West Bengal capped off a wonderful National Games, winning the men’s and women’s singles gold apart from being part of the gold-medal winning team for their States in the team category. In fact, Sutirtha finished with three gold medals, bagging the women’s doubles crown with Ayhika Mukherjee.

Harmeet’s game has been near-flawless in the Games. The 29-year-old exhibited good control and fine attacking play to script 11-8, 11-4, 11-7, 11–8 victory over Soumyajit Ghosh of Haryana to win the title here on Saturday. Sutirtha maintained her fine form with a resounding 11-8, 11-7, 11-8, 12-14, 11-9 triumph over Sreeja Akula of Telangana in the summit clash.

A tough fight was definitely expected in both the men’s and women’s finals, but Harmeet and Sutirtha gave no space for their opponents to stage a comeback.

Harmeet and Sutirtha’s confidence grew manifold after upsetting the top seeds of the tournament, G. Sathiyan (Tamil Nadu) and Delhi’s Manika Batra respectively earlier in the day.

West Bengal topped the medals tally with eight including four gold, one silver and three bronze. Host Gujarat came second with three gold and three bronze medals.

The results:

Men singles (final): Harmeet Desai bt Soumyajit Ghosh (WB) 11-8, 11-4, 11-7, 11–8; (semifinals): Harmeet bt G. Sathiyan (TN) 11-7, 11-8, 9-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-9; Soumyajit bt Manush Shah (Guj) 8-11, 11-9, 12-10, 11-5, 11-9.; doubles (final): Jeet Chandra & Ronit Bhanja (WB) bt Arjun Ghosh & Anirban Ghosh (WB) 11-4, 11-3, 11-3.

Women singles: (final): Sutirtha Mukherjee (WB) bt Sreeja Akula (TS) 11-8, 11-7, 11-8, 12-14, 11-9; (semifinals): Sutirtha bt Manika (Del) 11-6, 11-8, 10-12, 11-8, 7-11, 11-6; Sreeja bt Diya (Mah) 11-2, 11-9, 11-9, 5-11, 11-5.; doubles (final): Sutirtha & Ayhika Mukherjee (WB) bt V. Kushi & Yashaswini Ghorpade (Kar) 11-8, 11-5, 13-11.

Mixed doubles (final): Manush Shah & Krittwika Sinha Roy (Guj) bt F.R. Snehit & Sreeja (TS) 11-8, 11-5, 11-6.