Indian men’s double pair of Manu Atri and Sumeeth Reddy brought credibility to Indian doubles Badminton as they won the Belgian International Challenge tournament in Luven, Belgium on Sunday the 13 September 2015.
The pair played their final against top seeded Polish pair of Adam Cwalina and Przemyslaw Wacha and won it in three sets with the score of 22-20, 19-21 and 22-20 in a tough final match lasting over an hour.
In the first game, the Indian pair won 22-20 in a see-saw battle but lost the second game 19-21. They recovered in the final game, co-ordinated well to snatch the match with a 22-20 win in the third game.
Indian badminton has some good single players in Saina Nehwal, Sindhu, Kashyap, Shrikant etc but lack pairs of players in all three combination of Men’s, Women’s and Mixed Doubles. Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa do make news sometimes but in men’s double it is rare to hear Indian pair winning any title.
The pair is trained in Gopichand Academy. This is their fourth international Challenge title. They are ranked world no 21. Their best performance till date has been the finishing runners up in US Open Grand Prix Gold in June 2015. They add 1340 points from this win.