* Saturday, April 13th *
University of Rochester - Rally Niagara Cup Winners - Spring 2024
Rally Niagara hosted the Rally Niagara Cup Open Badminton Tournament on Saturday, April 13th. 102 players / 58 teams participated from various locals in the Northeast that included Southern Ontario, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and all throughout NY state. The tournament featured 5 events that started with Men's and Women's singles play in the morning followed by Men's and Women's doubles in the afternoon and lastly Mixed doubles in the evening. The game play was intense with some epic final matches decided in extra time in the 3rd game . Based on a series of points from 1st and 2nd place finishes, the University of Rochester secured 11 points to be the first repeat team to be listed on the Rally Niagara Cup. Powered by Quan Le & Sarika Gokhale, they defended the U of R title against strong contenders from Toronto clubs that included Epic Sports and Ray Wong as well as the University of Buffalo and Rally Niagara.
See results, scores, and photos shown below:
Men's Doubles:
"A" division:
1st place - Quan Le & Ryan Song (University of Rochester) won an epic match in game 3 over Matthew Chung & Ryan Fong (EPIC / Rally Niagara) 13-21, 21-12, 26-24. It was a see-saw battle with folks surrounding the court and enjoying the action packed finale.
"B" division:
1st place - Sai Sri Yeswanth & Vasu Bandike (University of Buffalo) 21-15, 21-10 held off a challenge from Wei-Chen Huang & Zhou Zhang (University of Rochester).
"C" division:
1st place - Rally Niagara's own Shahnoor Islam & MD Abu Jewal dug deep and came from behind to win against a tough New Jersey team of Sanketh Mahashetty & Aareen Gupta (Windsor Club) 14-21, 21-11, 21-13.
"D" division:
1st place - Zach Yaqub & Barry Zhang from Oberlin College in Ohio played hard and won against one of the top youth teams in the area from Clarence High School, Krish Kumar & Albert Liu. The final result was 21-10, 21-18. Krish & Albert were so excited to be in the final and are sure to be contenders for future tournaments.
Women's Doubles:
"A" division:
1st place - Angela Li & Ai Jiang (Epic / RW Badminton) were new comers to our semi-annual tournament and won in a very close match against local favorites Shaw-Ree Chen & Sarika Gokhale (University of Rochester). It went down to the wire in a 3rd game thriller with Angela & Ai prevailing 16-21, 21-11, 24-22.
Mixed Doubles:
"A" division:
1st place - Quan Le & Sarika Gokhale (U of R) cruised to a 21-9, 21-14 win over Daniel Hacker (Rally Niagara) & Ai Jiang (Ray Wong). The game play was intense. The "A" consolation bracket was won by Sal Lo (LIBC) & Wendy Tang (Rally Niagara) who were victorious over Agastya & Rayla (RIT) 21-19, 22-20.
"B" division:
1st place - Sandeep Yalamanchili & Amruta Bhat (Rally Niagara, University of Buffalo) 12-21, 21-9, 21-14 over Eric Hong & Wen Hsu (Rally Niagara, University of Buffalo). It was a three game thriller.
"C" division:
1st place - Junzhe Li & Julie Connelly battled in the last game of the night with Zach Yaqub & Eva Wu (Oberlin) prevailing 16-21, 21-13, 21-19. By the time that game was finished before midnight, all were exhausted. :)
Men's Singles:
"A" division:
1st place - Quan Le (University of Rochester) won 16-21, 21-14, 21-18 over Jonathan Ma (Epic). It was a very exciting match right to the end in which the result could have gone either way. Quan has continued his run of three straight Rally tournaments as the men's singles champion.
"B" division:
1st place - Agastya Chowdhary (Rochester Institute of Technology) 20-22, 21-19, 23-21 won the closest match of the tournament in a remarkable three set match over Vasu Bandike (University of Buffalo).
"C" division:
1st place - Senior player, Ali Mooney (Windsor Club) won a marathon match against local favorite, Karthik Dantu (Rally Niagara) 23-21, 16-21, 21-16.
"D" division:
1st place - Xianyin Zhang (University of Rochester) won over fellow classmate Yuduo Cai (University of Rochester) 21-18, 16-21, 30-28. The 58 point final game set the record for most points in a final game.
Women's Singles:
"A" division:
1st place - Rochester again came out on top with Sarika Gokhale (University of Rochester) prevailing over Ai Jiang (Ray Wong Badminton) in a three game encounter 21-10, 21-23, 21-14.
"C" division:
1st place - Yuxuan Duan (Syracuse University) brought home the only award for Syracuse in this tournament event triumphing 21-9, 21-12 over Zakya El Abbadi (University of Buffalo).
Gallery of Winners:
