Pune, Dec 8 (PTI) The pair of Asha Sharma and Pooja Batra as well as Vasanti Shah and Gopika Tandon secured the top two positions after the initial 22 rounds of qualifying at the Ashok Ruia Memorial Winter National Bridge Tournament, here on Sunday.

The event, which has been organised by Pune Region Bridge Association, is sanctioned by the Bridge Federation of India (BFI) and the Maharashtra Bridge Association (MBA) and has drawn top bridge players from across the country.

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The other pairs who have qualified for the final round include Shital Bansal and Sarika Mittal, Alka Kshirsagar and Bharti Dey and Ekta Chadha and Bina Malhotra.

The competition is underway at Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Balewadi here.

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The women's pairs event will consist of 10 rounds of five deals each, totalling 50 deals. The top 18 pairs will advance to the all-play-all round-robin stage, where the pair with the highest score will be crowned the national champions.

The tournament will also feature mixed pairs, senior team events, and the highly anticipated match-point pairs event, a release said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)