Failures breed ultimate success for Soad

Having learned from numerous defeats over the years, shuttler Khandokar Abdus Soad finally reached the top as the lad from Pabna defeated highly-regarded Al Amin Jumer 21-15 and 21-13 in the men's singles final of the 37th National Badminton Championships at the Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Indoor Stadium yesterday.

Urmi Akhter, champion of the 2021 Bangladesh Games, also maintained her success with a hard-fought 26-24, 21-19 win over Army teammate Nasim Khatun in a keenly contested women's singles final.

Urmi would later pair with Reshma Akter to clinch women's doubles with a 2 sets to 1 win over former champions Shapla Akter and Alina Sultana.

Although Urmi's success was expected, Soad's was a surprise, especially as given the presence of well-known ranked players like Bangladesh Games champion Gaurab Singh, defending champion Salman Khan and others like Jummar, Lokman, Sibgad.

"Since I started playing in the junior national champions from 2017, I lost a lot of matches. But I learned from those matches and started afresh and became champion in my first appearance in the national championship," Soad, of Bangladesh Police, said.

"The national championship was not held for the past three years, but I prepared myself in that time. I never crossed the third round of the Summer Ranking tournaments and that motivated me to work harder because I had a childhood dream of doing in the national championships," Soad said. "Now, I became successful in this long journey and I really feel happy with this achievement."

Soad informed that he once become champion in the Summer Championships and finished third in Bangladesh Games in 2021. Urmi was questioned about her championship during the Bangladesh Championship in the absence of Shapla and Alina but the girl from Bangladesh Army is now happier than before to clinch the title beating one of them – defending champion Shapla- on the way to be crowned national champion.

Urmi, who clinched her third champion title in a senior ranking tournament, said: "I am really very happy to become the champion because two senior players [Shapla and Alina] participated and I defeated one of them on way to the title.