Delhi Dashers rode on the firepower of their singles stars to defeat North Eastern Warriors 4-1 and book their semi-final berth in the third edition of the Premier Badminton League in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
The penultimate league game in the competition was a virtual quarterfinal with both the teams on 11 points before the match, and with fourth-placed Awadhe Warriors just a point ahead. The win took Dashers to the third spot in the standing but hosts Hyderabad Hunters can pip them if they manage to win even two points from their last league encounter against Bengaluru Blasters.
The NE Warriors sprung a surprise by fielding singles specialist Michelle Li in the mixed doubles with Shin Baek Cheol and the moved worked wonderfully well as the pair surprised Ashwini Ponnappa and Vladimir Ivanov 15-13, 15-11 in just 21 minutes to give their team a 1-0 lead.
The pressure would have been on Delhi Dashers had Ajay Jayaram managed to pull off a win over Wing Ki Wong Vincent in the second match but the 30-year-old made too many errors and though he staged a fine comeback in the second game, the mistakes were far too many as he lost 15-13, 10-15, 15-12.
This meant that NE Warriors only chance to stay in the match was to win their trump fixture. And when their Chinese Taipei recruit Tzu Wei Wang took a 10-5 lead in the decider against world number 22 Tian Houwei, the hopes in the dugout would have definitely increased.
However, the left-handed Chinese showed brilliant defensive skills to upset the rhythm of Wang and win the match 15-10, 8-15, 15-11 to put his team on the brink of a semifinal berth.
This incidentally, was the first time, NE Warriors lost their trump match this season.
But the Warriors refused to give up as Li fought hard against Sung Ji Hyun but the experienced Korean kept her nerves in crunch situation to win the tie 13-15, 15-11, 15-13 to seal the semifinal berth.
NE Warriors doubles stars Kim Gi Jung and Shin Banek Cheol registered a consolation win over Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov 9-15, 15-10, 15-9 to end their debut campaign on a positive note.