Subhrajeet Maharana made Odisha proud, bagging one bronze medal for India in mens doubles SL3-SL4 category of the Uganda Para Badminton International 2023 in Kampala today. Subhrajeet played with Jharkhand partner Prashant Kumar Sinha.

This was the second international medal for Bhubaneswar para shuttler Subhrajeet, who had won his first one, also a doubles bronze, at the Spanish Para Badminton International, earlier this year in Vitoria, Spain.

Subhrajeet and Prashant settled for the bronze medal after losing to fellow Indians Naveen Sivakumar and Chandra Prakash in the semifinals 11-21, 4-21. On their way to the semifinals, Subhrajeet and Prashant won two matches and lost one.

Placed in Group-C, Subhrajeet and Prashant started their campaign with a 21-13, 21-14 win over Ivory Coast pair of Yao Andre Amani and Deada Jean Yves Yao. But in the next round they went down to New Zealand-India combination of Wojtek Czyz and Abhijeet Sakhuja 7-21, 10-21.

Subhrajeet and Prashant booked a berth in the semifinals, defeating Cameroon duo of Emmanuel Pinochet Amougui and Etienne Songa Bidjocka in the hard-fought quarterfinal 21-15, 17-21, 21-27-25.

Subhrajeet also participated in mens singles SL4 category and reached quarterfinals before losing to Yeh En-Chuan of Chinese Taipei 13-21, 10-21. Subhrajeet qualified for the quarterfinals winning two matches and losing one Group-E league.

Subhrajeet got walk-over against Hassan Kamoga of Uganda and then beat Etienne Songa Bidjocka Etienne Songa Bidjocka (Cameroon) 21-9, 21-16. In between he lost to Nigerian Chigozie Jeremiah Nnanna 10-21, 9-21.

Subhrajeet was the only Odisha shuttler at the Uganda Para Badminton International, a Level-3 tournament of Badminton World Federation (BWF), which was held from July 4 to 9. Team India won bagged a total of 42 medals, which incuded 13 gold, 12 silver and 17 bronze.
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PHOTO: Odisha para shuttler Subhrajeet Maharana poses with his bronze medal at the Uganada Para Badminton International in Kampala on 9 July 2023.