Indian shuttler Mithun Manjunath, who reached his first ever Super 100 final at the ongoing Orleans Masters tournament, after a superb straight game victory over Christian Adinata of Indonesia in the semifinal, settled for silver after losing to world no 32 Toma Junior Popov 21-11, 21-19 in the summit clash on Sunday at the Palais des Sports in Orleans, France.
Mithun, the 23-year-old Syed Modi International Super 300 semifinalist and Odisha Super 100 quarterfinalist who has undergone training at the prestigious Prakash Padukone academy in Bengaluru, came off of a dominating performance over Adinata in their 47-minute semifinal showdown on Saturday, which ended in a 21-18, 21-14 victory for the Indian. However, the world no 79 Indian fell short against his French opponent in the gold medal clash.
The first game saw a close tussle between the two at the beginning, and it was Popov to take the first lead, but Mithun had made it 5-5, before a couple of costly errors letting the local shuttler extend his lead to 11-6 at the break. The Indian had some more unlucky attempts, letting Popov pace ahead to 18-11, before bagging the first game 21-11.
The second game saw Muithun taking a 3-1 lead, and keeping Popov under pressure, reaching 11-6 at the interval. However, the Frenchman slowly caught up and equaled the scores at 14-all. A close neck to neck battle saw both shuttlers at 19-19, before Popov smashed his match point chance to seal the gold.
On the other hand, the pair of Ashwini Bhat K and Shikha Gautam suffered a close defeat after a hard fought battle against the German duo of Stine Kuspert and Emma Moszczynski in the women’s doubles semifinals.
Highlights:
- Indian shuttler Mithun Manjunath settles for silver after losing the Orleans Master Super 100 final against Toma Junior Popov 21-11, 21-10 on Sunday
- It was the first Super 100 final appearance for Mithun, who had earlier reached the Syed Modi International Super 300 semifinali and Odisha Super 100 quarterfinal stages
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