PESHAWAR: Murad Ali and Mahoor Shahzad won the men and women singles titles after defeating their respective rivals in the All-Pakistan National Ranking Badminton Championships here at the PSB Coaching Centre on Friday.

NBP’s Murad played well against his relatively weaker rival Mohammad Ali Larosh of SNGPL and won the decider 21-13, 21-18.

Murad, who also represented Pakistan at last year’s Asian Games in Indonesia and the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, dominated the proceedings right from the start and marched to a facile victory.

“Today, I feel proud because for the first time my father came to witness the final. [Earlier] I lost two national championship finals but today I succeeded in maintaining my ranking [by winning],” Murad Ali said in his post-match talk.

Meanwhile, promising Mahoor of Wapda outplayed SNGPL’s Ghazala Siddique 21-4, 21-9 in the women’s decider.

“I have been holding Pakistan No. 1 ranking by winning the national title since 2016,” a jubilant Mahoor said.

In the men’s doubles final, Azeem Sarwar (Wapda) and Kashif Sulehri (NBP) overwhelmed the duo of Raja Zulqarnain (NBP) and Awais Zahid (Wapda) 21-15, 21-14.

Palwasha Bashir (NBP) partnering Mahoor Shahzad (Wapda) overcame Memoona and Khizra (both Wapda) 21-7, 30-29 in the women’s doubles final.

Director General Sports and Managing Director Tourism Corporation KP Junaid Khan was the chief guest on this occasion. In the end, Junaid awarded trophies to the winners and announced Rs100,000 for the winner of each category and Rs50,000 for every category runner-up.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2019