CALCUTTA, December 10: Second seed Sachin Ratti of Railways and girls' top seed Divya Ramesh of Air-India emerged champions in the 22nd Junior National Badminton championships at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here today.

While Ratti defeated compatriot Arup Baidya 15-2, 12-15, 15-12; Divya outplayed Parul Priyadarshini of Uttar Pradesh 11-4, 11-2.

For the third place in the boys' singles, Thomas Kurien of Railways beat A Guruprasad of Karnataka 14-17, 15-1, 17-14. Railways' B R Minakshi clinched the third spot of the girl's singles thrashing fourth seed Salaka Damle of Air-India 11-5, 11-9.

Award for Jeev

NEW DELHI: India's Jeev Milkha Singh has been voted Johnnie Walker Asian Golfer of the Month for November after he became the first Asian player from the Omega Tour to qualify for the PGA European Tour.

Jeev, who is the second Indian this year to win the award after Gaurav Ghei won it in July, will be presented a specially inscribed Tiffany of London Trophy and in addition, golf development programmes in India will be given a cash donation from Johnnie Walker.

Aberrowei for JCT

KOZHIKODE: Mohun Bagan will field a glittering line-up in this year's Philips National League. A Nigerian under-19 World Cupper would be joining the Bagan defence a few days before the League, according to the club sources.

Meanwhile, Stephen Aberrowei, the star striker from Nigeria has already decided to join his former employers JCT Mills on a short-term contract. Though Bagan were also in the race for Aberrowei, the African was not too keen to play in Calcutta.

Top seed out

CALCUTTA: In a day of upsets, Nick Greenhouse of Great Britain upset top seed Manoj Mahadevan of India in straight sets 6-3, 7-5 while Indian qualifier Kedar Tembe humbled eighth seed Rohan Bopanna 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 to enter the quarter-finals of Duncans ITF junior tennis here today.

Local boy S Zaman overcame an injury in his arm to easily enter the quarter-finals beating qualifier kedar shah 6-3, 6-1. Qualifier Ravikiram Bhatt who beat Fu Hsiao Wei of Chinese Taipei 6-2, 6-3.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.