Jayaram enters Korea Open semis

Seoul: Indian shuttler Ajay Jayaram came out with one of his best performances in recent years to beat Japan’s Sho Sasaki and enter the men’s singles semi-finals of the $600,000 Korea Open Superseries here on Friday.

Mumbai’s Jayaram took an hour and six minutes to move past World No.26 Sasaki 21-19, 16-21, 21-16 at the S.K. Handball Stadium. With the win, the World No.32 Indian levelled his head-to-head to 2-2 against the Japanese.

Jayaram, who turns 28 later this month, will take on Chinese Taipei’s seventh seed Chou Tien Chen for a place in the summit clash. The Mumbaikar has a 2-2 record against the World No 7. In the quarter-final, after sharing the first two games, it all boiled down to the decider where the Indian just about had enough energy left, after a long battle, to pull it of.

In the topsy-turvy game it was Sasaki who led at the start. But from 6-9 down, Jayaram levelled the contest at 12-all. From there, Jayaram never looked back and kept on increasing the lead against the fatigued Japanese and closed the game in his favour to win the contest.

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