Karnataka women dominate Day 2 of Indian Open of Surfing

Sixteen-year-old Sugar Banarse from Goa impressed judges with her surfing, gathering the highest points among the women who made it to the finals of the Indian Open of Surfing 2022 scheduled for Sunday.

Karnataka’s Ishita Malviya (6.17) and Sinchana Gowda (7.30) along with Goa’s Sugar Banarse (11.27) and Tamil Nadu’s Srishthi Selvam (10.37) advanced to the finals of the women’s open surf category. Sugar will also compete in the finals of the groms (16 and below) girls surf category.

Sugar said, “I am happy to make it to the finals, but I am competing against experienced surfers and the defending champion Srishti Selvam. I know the challenge from my fellow finalists will be tough but I am looking forward to it and I hope to surf my best tomorrow."

In the Groms Boys (U16) surf category semifinals it was a clean sweep by Tamil Nadu surfers, with Kishore Kumar leading the race by a huge margin. The others who have made it to the finals are Tayin Arun (11.10), Naveenkumar R (10.17) and Jeevan S (6.46).

The day began with the quarterfinal encounters in the men’s open surf category which was dominated by Tamil Nādu surfers while Karnataka’s Ramesh Budhial impressed everyone with his maneuvers and surfing booking a spot for himself in semifinals with 14.33 points, the highest amongst the ones in the semifinals for the men’s open surf category. Tamil Nādu surfers Srikanth D (9.93), Surya P (9.7), Satish Sarvanan (12), Ruban V (8.7), Ajeesh Ali (9.3), Manikandan M (8.34) & Sanjai Kumar S (9.17) also advanced to the semifinals in the men’s open surf category. Due to bad weather and non-surfable conditions, the semifinals for the category that was earlier scheduled to be held on Saturday has been shifted to the final day on Sunday.