Para Badminton World Championship: Odia star Pramod Bhagat enters singles and doubles finals

World No.1 Odia para-shuttler and Paralympic champion Pramod Bhagat is on the brink of creating history again. 

With his dominating run in the ongoing Para Badminton World Championship-2022 at Tokyo in Japan, Pramod entered the singles and doubles final of the men’s singles SL3 category of the mega event. 

In today’s exciting singles semifinal, Pramod got the better of Japan’s Daisuki Fujihara to sail into the summit clash. Pramod defeated Fujihara 22-20, 21-14. The first set was a nail-biting affair. However, the Odia para-shuttler managed to win it at the end. In the second set, Pramod hardly gave any opportunity to Fujihara for coming back into the match and sealed it in his favour.

Pramod will meet compatriot Nitesh Kumar in the singles final.

In the doubles category, Pramod partnered with compatriot Manoj Sarkar to defeat the France duo of Guillaume Gaily and Mathieu Thomas convincingly in the semifinal. Pramod and Manoj played dominantly to beat Gaily and Thomas 21-8, 21-16 in the lop-sided encounter. The Indian duo will meet Indonesia’s Ramdani and Ukun Runkandi in the summit clash on Sunday.

Defending champions Bhagat and Manoj reached the men’s doubles SL3-SL4 semis with a bye.

Notably, Pramod is playing his seventh career World Championship. The star para-shuttler has won a total of five gold, one silver and three bronze medals in singles and doubles categories of the mega event so far.