Para Sports
Asian Para Badminton C'ships: Manisha Ramadass stuns two-time Paralympic champion
Manisha registered her first-ever win against Yang Qiuxia of China in the WS SU5 final to win her maiden Asian title.
Manisha Ramadass stunned two-time Paralympic champion to win her maiden Asian title. (File Photo)
The young Indian para-shuttler Manisha Ramadass stunned two-time Paralympic champion Yang Qiuxia of China in the final to win her maiden Asian Championship title in Thailand on Sunday.
Manisha took her first-ever win against Yang in their seventh meeting today in a tight three-game (21-18, 17-21, 21-15) encounter that lasted for 57 minutes, clinching the gold medal in the women's singles SU5 category.
Maiden Asian title for Manisha
Manisha had a positive start to the summit clash and showed impressive cross-court drop shots to maintain her good lead in the opening game and take the first advantage in the match, 21-18.
Yang, however, showed her composure and bounced back in the second game to force a tiebreaker.
The 20-year-old Indian had a massive 13-2 lead in the tiebreak, and was looking comfortable for the win, but then in a tragic turn around she made plenty of unforced errors and suddenly her lead dropped down to just 1 point, 15-14.
The youngster looked stressed with this sudden change of momentum, but she didn't lose her hope and fought back to win six of the seven final points and clinched the match and the Asian title.
Cleansweep for Paralympic champion Nitesh Kumar
Paris Paralympic Champion Nitesh Kumar completed a clean sweep in Thailand by winning all three gold medals - men's singles SL3, men's doubles SL3-SL4 (with Sukant Kadam), and mixed doubles SL3-SU5 (with Thulasimathi Murugesan)
In the singles, Nitesh took a straight-game win against a rising youngster, Muh AI Imran of Indonesia, in the final. Meanwhile, in mixed doubles, Nitesh-Thulasimathi got the better of Ruthick-Manasi in an all-Indian final.
Nitesh then completed his hat-trick of gold medals as he clinched the men's doubles SL3-SL4 title with Sukant Kadam in another all-Indian final against Naveen Sivakumar and Jagadish Dilli.
Meanwhile, Nithya Sre Sivan (WS SH6) and Mandeep Kaur (WS SL3) settled for the silver medals after losing their respective finals to Chinese and Indonesian opponents, respectively.
India concluded the Asian Para Badminton Championships 2025 with 27 medals - 4 Gold, 10 Silver, and 13 Bronze medals
List of Top 2 finishers of India:
- Nitesh Kumar - Men's Singles SL3 - Gold
- Manisha Ramadass - Women's Singles SU5 - Gold
- Nitesh-Sukant - Men's Doubles SL3-SL4 - Gold
- Nitesh-Thulasimathi - Mixed Doubles SL3-SU5 - Gold
- Surya Kant Yadav - Men's Singles SL4 - Silver
- Mandeep Kaur - Women's Singles SL3 - Silver
- Palak Kohli - Women's Single SL4 - Silver
- Nithya Sre Sivan - Women's Singes SH6 - Silver
- Jagadesh-Naveen - Men's Doubles SL3-SL4 - Silver
- Hardik-Ruthick - Men's Doubles SU5 - Silver
- Manasi-Thulasimathi - Women's Doubles SL3-SU5 - Silver
- Nithya Sre-Rachana - Women's Doubles SH6 - Silver
- Manasi-Ruthick - Mixed Doubles SL3-SU5 - Silver
- Krishna-Nithya Sre- Mixed Doubles SH6 - Silver
