Gatchina: Malaysia’s unseeded Iskandar Zulkarnain won his first international championship in two years when he beat India’s Siddharth Pratap Singh 21-13, 21-16 in the 2019 White Nights International Challenge final on Sunday.
The White Nights was an open international badminton tournament in Russia. This tournament has been an International Challenge level and offered total prize money of US$25,000.
Zulkarnain who quit the Malaysian national team early this year, needed only 36 minutes to win his first title of the season.
This was also the 28-year-old’s fifth international title. The last championship he won was the 2017 Malaysia International Challenge where he outlasted his junior Leong Jun Hao in the final.
In an all-Japanese final, Yukino Nakai/Nao Ono of Japan saw off Minami Kawashima/Natsu Saito 18-21, 21-17, 21-13 for the women’s doubles title.
Other than men’s single and women’s doubles, home team Russia was a big winner by claiming the men’s doubles through Nikita Khakimov, Alexandr Zinchenko, mixed doubles by Rodion Alimov/Alina Davletova and the women’s singles No. 1 seeds Evgeniya Kosetskaya had to dig deep before winning the title against Japanese player Yukino Nakai 22-24, 21-12, 21-12.
