Indian paddler Sreeja Akula reigned supreme as she won her first-ever international title, the WTT Feeder event in Corpus Christie, US on Friday. The two-time national champion beat world No 46 Lily Zhang 11-6, 18-16, 11-5 in the women’s final.
En route to her title win, Akula, ranked 94 in the world, beat Stephanie Loeuillette 3-1 and got the better of top seed Amy Wang 3-2 (11-9, 9-11, 11-1, 6-11, 11-9) in what was a thrilling quarter-final.
In the semi-final, she faced Jiangshan Gao, another American player who was a tough opponent for Akula. The American would be trailing 1-2 before staging a comeback in the fourth game to push the match to a decider. However, Akula held her nerve and closed out the fifth game 11-9 to enter the finals.
As reported by Sportstar, Akula has considered this title win as a confidence booster for her hopes in qualifying for the Paris Olympics, having also beaten two higher-ranked players on course to the title.
The other Indians that were competing in the tournament were Manav Thakkar, who lost 1-3 (11-8, 8-11, 11-13, 9-11) to Portugal’s Joao Monteiro in the semi-finals, and Harmeet Desai who exited in the quarter-finals after a 1-3 to eventual champion Kirill…
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