2022 national surfing champion Sugar Banarse roars into Indian Open final

Representational Image (Pic: Istock)

17-year-old Sugar Banarse turned heads with an impressive performance in the Women's Open category to reach the final of the 4th Indian Open of Surfing on Friday. Banarse, who collected the highest number of points (10.17), will look to defend her title on Saturday against tough competitors like Tamil Nadu's Kamali Moorthy (8.50) and Shrishti Selvam (4.74) and Karnataka's Sinchana Gowda (5.17).

In the Men's Open category, Sanjaikumar S, Srikanth D, Raghul Paneerselvam, Sathhish Sarvanan, Manikandan M, Kishore Kumar, Santhosh M and Surya P advanced to the semifinals, scheduled to be held on Saturday.

"The waves were comparatively smaller than the previous day and but I am happy to do well today. I want to continue with the tempo and win the title," said Srikanth D, who scored the highest number of points.

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The Groms Boys (U16) category semifinals saw Tamil boys dominate as three out of four surfers from the state made it to the final. Teenage surfer Kishore Kumar emerged as the highest scorer in the category for the second consecutive day (11.67) as he stunned everyone with his stellar performance.

Tayin Arun, with 9.17 points, and Harish P, with 6.33, were other boys from Tamil Nadu to book final berths. Karnataka's only hope Pradeep Pujar earned 4.30 points to reach to the final.

Hailing from Goa, Banarse wowed the judges with her skills and entered the finals of the women's open surf category at the National Surfing competitions held at Panambur beach by Surfing Federation of India and Mantra Surf Club last year. She also received a total of 14.50 points and was crowned the national champion in the process, while Srishti Selvam came in second with 13.40 points.

(With PTI inputs)