Parupalli Kashyap reached his first final on the BWF circuit in over 16 months when he defeated fourth seed Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei 14-21, 21-17, 21-18 in the semi-final of the Canada Open Super 100 badminton tournament in Calgary on Saturday.

The 32-year-old, whose last title came at the Austrian Open International Challenge in February 2018, once again fought back from the brink in the tournament that has seen him play three game matches from the second round to beat Wang in an hour and 10 minutes and set up a summit clash against China’s Li Shi Feng. The unseeded Chinese defeated Japan’s Koki Watanabe 20-22, 21-10, 21-11 in the other semi-final.

Having saved a match point in the quarter-final against Lucas Claerbout of France, Kashyap against struggled to get going in the opening game as Wang opened up a 6-1 lead. Though the Indian managed to level the scores at 11-11 and take the lead for the first time in the game at 12-11, the fourth seeded Taipei shuttler won 10 of the next 12 points to draw first blood.

Kashyap, the 2017 US Open finallist, was much more dominant in the second as he never conceded the lead and forced a decider. It looked all over for the Indian as he trailed 5-11 in the third game before a string of seven of the next eight points allowed him to draw parity and the 32-year-old then kept his nerves to wrap up the game and match.