Viren shines at India International Challenge

Sri Lanka’s promising shuttler Viren Nettasinghe started on a winning note as he defeated Indian shuttler Aryaman Tandon after a hard-fought 2-1 game at the first-round match of the Infosys Foundation India International Challenge played at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bengaluru, India, yesterday.

Nettasinghe, currently ranked 80th in the world, lost his first set but fought back strongly to win the next two sets, qualifying for the second round.

It was a challenging match and Nettasinghe the former St. Peter’s Bambalapitiya shuttler used his experience to beat his Indian opponent. When the Daily News contacted Nettasinghe, he said, “This tournament is crucial for earning world ranking points. Whatever matches I can win in this tournament, I can earn points to improve my world ranking. My goal is to achieve Olympic qualification, and I am putting in every effort to focus on that.”

Meanwhile, the 18-year-old Royal College shuttler Aashinsa Herath also was due to play his first-round game yesterday evening against India’s Shreyansh Jaiswal.

The tournament offers a total prize pool of $25,000 and is one of the key international events in the Indian badminton calendar It features top-class badminton players from India and a few players from Thailand, Japan, and Singapore along with two Sri Lanka players in this ranking tournament.

The post Viren shines at India International Challenge appeared first on DailyNews.