New Delhi, Sep 27 (IANS): India's rising men's doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and M.R Arjun, who won the India International challenge last week, were motivated by their mentors Pullela Gopichand and Danish coach Mathias Boe to go for the title.

The pair had strong backing from their mentors who motivated them to push the limit and gave them the boost to achieve this feat. "We had plans from the beginning of the tournament. Gopi sir and Mathias had told us that we have to win the tournament to show that we are on a higher level. And we did prove that. The final was a difficult match against Thailand's pair," IOS Sports athlete, Dhruv said.

"They played some great matches earlier this year and were consistent even during the tournament. But we took that challenge and we prepared well. We knew they would hesitate in the crucial moment and we took advantage of that," he added.

Describing their performance in the tournament, Dhruv said, "With the Malaysian pair the match was difficult as we knew that they were really strong and had played some good badminton, but we were ready for it. We won 21-15 and 23-21 against them and with the Thailand pair it was a comfortable game win with a score of 21-14 21-12."

The 22-year-old Dhruv Kapila came under the spotlight after his stellar performance at the 2019 South Asian Games by bagging three gold medals in men's doubles, mixed Double and men's team. He was also a part of the Indian squad that scripted history by winning the first-ever Thomas Cup for India.

Dhruv now remains motivated to carry on this momentum as the pair heads to Europe to compete in the French Open and the German Open in the coming days.