The fancied Delhi pairing of Asha Sharma and Puja Batra, after a bit of a struggle final came to grips with themselves and finished on a high as the duo clinched the top honours in the Ladies’ Pair competition of the Prime Securities-National Ranking Bridge Championship 2024, organized under the auspices of the Bridge Federation of India (BFI) and hosted by the Bombay Gymkhana.

Sharma and Batra, the overnight leaders at the end of the qualifying round maintained the superiority among the 18 finalists in the final phase of the competition. The duo from Delhi started hesitantly but at the halfway stage they once again struck a perfect combination and staged a strong fight back to seal the win as they finished with 56 IMPs, which ensured they clinched Ladies’ crown.

The combined pairing of Usha Kabra (Mumbai) and Bharati Dey (Kolkata) with 50 IMPs finished as runners-up, while another Delhi pair of Devi Bhatnagar and Alka Jain with 37 IMPs had to settle for the third position.

Sharma and Batra for their brilliant effort were rewarded with top cash prize of Rs 40,000. Kabra and Dey received a cheque of Rs 30,000 while Bhatnagar and Jain had to be content with a prize of Rs 20,000. The pairs up to the eighth positions also received cash awards.

The Ladies Pairs event will be followed by the Mixed Teams and Mixed Pairs events, which will commence later this week.

The final positions (top-8):

1.  Asha Sharma & Puja Batra

2.  Usha Kabra & Bharati Dey

3.  Devi Bhatnagar & Alka Jain

4.  Subhasree Basu & Meenal Thakur

5.  Aditi Jhaveri & Marianne Karmarkar

6.  Bindiya Kohli & Priya Balasubramanian

7.  Anjali Karthikeyan & Ritu Bangaria

8.  Veena Bobb & Ramani Menon