Mumbai, Nov 13 (PTI) Asha Sharma and Puja Batra from New Delhi clinched the top honours in the ladies pair competition in the National Ranking Bridge Championship here on Wednesday.
Asha and Puja, who were 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 Delhi pair found its rhythm at the halfway stage to put up a strong performance, finishing with 56 IMPs that helped them win the ladies pair crown.
Mumbai's Usha Kabra and Kolkata's Bharati Dey finished runner-up with 50 IMPs while another pair from Delhi in Devi Bhatnagar and Alka Jain was third with 37 IMPs.
The winning pair of Asha and Puja received a prize money of Rs 40,000 while the runner-up combination of Usha and Bharati got Rs 30,000. Devi and Alka received Rs 20,000, and the pairs up to the eighth position also received cash awards.
The mixed teams and mixed pairs events will be held later this week.
Final positions (top 8): 1. Asha Sharma and Puja Batra, 2. Usha Kabra and Bharati Dey, 3. Devi Bhatnagar and Alka Jain, 4. Subhasree Basu and Meenal Thakur, 5. Aditi Jhaveri and Marianne Karmarkar, 6. Bindiya Kohli and Priya Balasubramanian, 7. Anjali Karthikeyan and Ritu Bangaria, 8. Veena Bobb and Ramani Menon.