Delhi continued its domination of the tennis court, with Divij Sharan lifting the men's title and Parul Goswami running away with the women's honours at the 33rd National Games in Guwahati on Saturday.
Divij rode on his trademark power-packed game to cruise to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Bengal's Manoj Sewa after Parul prevailed over top seed Sonal Phadke of Maharashtra 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 at the Chachal tennis complex.
Delhi had claimed both the men's and women's team gold medals on Thursday.
Manoj, playing his first-ever final in a national level tournament, found top seed Divij's attacking tennis too hot to handle and bowed out without a fight in an hour.
The 23-year-old Bengal player, who stunned third seed Ashutosh Singh of Delhi in the semi-finals, could hold serve only in the fifth game of the opening set.
Serving 1-5 down, Manoj committed two double faults in the crucial seventh game and lost the set.
The in-form Divij, who did not drop a set throughout the tournament, maintained the momentum in the second set, breaking Manoj in the fourth and seventh games.
The Delhi player, ranked fifth in the AITA list, took five consecutive games before closing the set and match with an ace.
Divij later said the success would help him go into the coming Futures assignments in Nigeria with oodles of confidence.
"I am now working hard to improve my rankings. I will be playing a lot of Futures and Challengers in the coming months."
Asked whether he had anticipated such an easy victory, Divij replied: "Matches are never as easy as you may think at this level."
In the women's singles final, Sonal dug her own grave by making a lot of unforced errors during the match that was mainly confided to the baseline.
The second seeded Parul broke the seasoned Maharashtra player in the second game of the opening set but lost the advantage by dropping serve in the fifth game.
The two players traded breaks in the ninth and tenth games and then retained serve in the next two games as the set rolled into the tie-break where the two players went neck and neck till 4-4.
From then on, Parul surged ahead and took three points in a row to pocket the gold.
Parul later said she never expected the final to be over in straight sets.
"I thought it will be a three-set affair."
