World No.10 H.S Prannoy of maintained his unbeaten run in the Premier Badminton League as he breezed past his compatriot Sai Praneeth of Hyderabad Hunters to seal the tie for Ahmedabad Smash Masters at the Siri Fort Sports Complex in New Delhi on Friday.
Perhaps surprsingly named as the trump player against the talented and mercurial Praneeth, Prannoy started in his usual flamboyant manner and took a 6-2 lead. But the world No 16 did not let him off the hook so easily and overturned the deficit to take six straight points to lead 8-7 at the interval. After the break, Prannoy got his act together and after initial exchange of points, won four straight points to race to a 14-10 lead. Praneeth delayed the inevitable by saving a game point but Prannoy took the next one to win the opening game 15-11.
The reigning national champion was unstoppable in the second game however, and his combination of power smashes, deceptive drops and net play was too much for Praneeth to handle and he went down 8-15 to see his team go down 1-4 on points.
This is Prannoy’s ninth win on the trot in the PBL – in a run that extended to last year’s edition.
Earlier, World No.1 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei retained Ahmedabad’s lead in the third match after she picked up a comfortable victory over Rasika Raje. The young Indian replacing world No 4 Carolina Marin in the playing squad looked completely out of sorts and went down 5-15, 6-15.
In the second match of the tie, World No 18, Lee Hyun Il of Korea brushed aside India’s Sourabh Verma to restore parity for the Hunters. The Korean veteran looked in sublime form as he raced past his opponent 15-9 in the opening game without facing much challenge. In the second game, Saurabh, ranked 49th in the world, gave a better account of himself and tried to make a comeback but could not mount a challenge as the 2017 Denmark Open runner-up whisked away to seal the deal 15-11.
Ahmedabad’s mixed doubles duo of Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Lee Chun Hei Reginald came back from a game down to beat the Hyderabad pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Pia Zebediah Bernadeth to draw the first blood in the tie.
Hunters got off to a flying start in the opening game and left their opponents running for cover as their powerplay was too much to handle for the Ahmedabad duo. They hardly broke a sweat and danced their way a 15-4 win in the opening game.
Satwik and Pia started the second game from where they left and opened up a 3-0 lead. It looked like they would race to the victory without facing much challenge. But the Ahmedabad pair launched a stunning comeback to win the next three points to level the score. Both the pair moved together from here on and it was Ahmedabad who went into the break with a slender lead of one point. After the interval, Ahmedabad took three points on the trot to lead 11-8. Hyderabad tried to stay in the game and picked up few more points but Ahmedabad duo eventually won the second game 15-12 to take the match into the decider.
Kamilla / Lee Chen gradually grew into the match and turned the tides completely and won the final game 15-8 to give their squad an 1-0 advantage.
In the men’s doubles, the last and final match of the day, was won by the Hunters 15-14, 15-11 as the experienced duo of Markis Kido and Yoo Yeon Seong beat Kidambi Nandagopal and Lee Chen in their trump match.