WITH a convincing win in the 58th Inter-Bank Badminton Tournament final, RBI A retained championship for 12 years in succession. Total 16 teams from various banks registered for the annual tournament. The meet was organised jointly by RYMCA and Bankers’ Sports Council. In the final RBI A defeated SBI B 2-0. Pranav Lokhande beat Ashish Ingale 21-6, 21-14 in singles and then Lokhande-Raj Kare pair got the better of a fighting duo of Ashish Singh and Pratik Potey 21-18, 16-21, 21-10 in three games. In semi-finals of team events, Reserve Bank A beat SBI D and SBI B beat UCO Bank. In first semi-final, RBI A defeated SBI D.

 

Lokhande bt Mahendra 15-4, 15-2; Lokhande-Kare bt Mahendra-Atul 15-6, 15-6. In the second semis, SBI B also defeated UCO Bank A by an identical 2-0 margin. Potey beat Yogesh Bawankule 15-8, 15-3 in singles and then Potey-Ingale bt Bawankule-Milind Wankhede 15-7, 15-8. At the outset, the event was inaugurated by Sanjit Kumar, AGM Canara Bank. Neeraj Singh, Secretary, RYMCA, Ravi Joshi, Secretary and Prafulla Nandedkar, Vice-President BSC, Aditya Gokhale and Tribhovan Meshram were prominently present. Mangesh Puranik made introductory remarks. Individual events will start at 9.30 am on Sunday. Gaurav Rege is working as chief referee.