LAHORE: Top seed Murad Ali of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Muqeet Tahir of Wapda reached the men’s singles final while top seed Palwasha Bashir of Sindh and Wapda’s Mahoor Shahzad marched into the women’s decider at the 59th National Badminton Championships here on Saturday.

Murad held his nerves and toppled Wapda’s Ali Larosh 21-16, 18-21, 25-23 in a hard fought semi-final which lasted almost 50 minutes.

Muqeet, however, had an easy sailing against Irfan Saeed in an all-Wapda last-four clash as the former wrapped up the semi-final 21-15, 21-7.

It was the day of Muqeet as Irfan after showing resistance in the first game, looked totally off colour in his serves and defence.

Meanwhile, Mahoor overcame Alja Tariq to book a place in the final where she will be facing top seed Palwasha Bashir who outplayed Ghazala Siddique 21-16, 21-8 in the other semi-final.

Results (semi-finals):

Men’s singles: Murad Ali (KP) bt M Ali Larosh (Wapda) 21-16, 18-21, 25-23; Muqeet Tahir (Wapda) bt Irfan Saeed (Wapda) 21-15, 21-7.

Women’s singles:

Mahoor Shahzad (Wapda) bt Alja Tariq (Balochistan) 21-14, 21-7; Palwasha Bashir (Sindh) bt Ghazala Siddique (Wapda) 21-16, 21-8.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2022