Panaji, Aug 22 (UNI) Reigning champions Kiran Makode (Nagpur) and Arvind Gangani (Surat), and defending champions Leena Dapre (Pune) and V Shirodkar (Satara) today entered into the finals of the men's and women's singles respectively in the 42nd LIC Western Zonal Badminton tournament, being held at SAG Indoor complex, Campal in Goa.

In the closly contested men's semi finals, Makode beat Pradosh Silimkhan (Goa) by 21-11, 21-11, while Arvind defeated Samir Govilkar (Mumbai) by 21-11, 21-09 and sailed into finals.

In the women's semi finals, Leena Dapre (PuneI) made short work of S A Pornis (Pune II) 21-03, 21-04 and in the second V Shirodkar (Satara) also won comfortably beating S S Sovani (Pune) by 21-04, 21-09.

The finals will be played today evening, followed by prize distribution function.

In the men's position matches for the third and fourth places, Sameer Govilkar (Mumbai) edged out Pradosh Silimkhan (Goa) 21-18-21-18. Manish Shah (Gandhinagar) had to be content on fifth place after defeating M R Shevde (Mumbai) 21-19, 20-22, 21-18. Shevde finshied sixth.

Hiren Shastri (Gandhinagar) beat Tushar Kadam (Vadodara) 21-9, 21-6 and bagged seventh and eighth place respectively.

UNI SRN ZA PY RK1525