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Saina, Prannoy emerge on top
Saina Nehwal and HS Prannoy, both ranked number 11 in the world, won tough summit clashes to be crowned new national champions at the 82nd Senior National Badminton Championship in Nagpur on Wednesday.
Nagpur: Saina Nehwal and HS Prannoy, both ranked number 11 in the world, won tough summit clashes to be crowned new national champions at the 82nd Senior National Badminton Championship in Nagpur on Wednesday. After Prannoy defeated title favourite Srikanth to win men's singles title, Saina outlasted PV Sindhu in a tight two games to win her third national title.
It took six match-point chances for Saina to defeat top seed and world no. 2 Sindhu 21-17, 27-25. After exchanging points regularly early in the contest, Saina won few consecutive points to take 10-7 lead in the first game.
Sindhu reduced the lead to just one point, before Saina took 11-9 lead at the mid-game break. Saina then won four more consecutive points to extend the lead to 14-9. Sindhu fought back by winning four back-to-back points and made it 17-18. But Saina made sure that lead did not slip away from her after that and Sindhu hit a smash wide to lose the opening game 17-21.
Sindhu started aggressively and raced to 5-1 lead in the second game, but Saina took no time to even the contest and made it 6-6. The duo exchanged few points before Sindhu went into break with a three-point advantage - 11-8. Sindhu maintained the lead till 18-15, after that Saina changed gear and took 20-18 lead for her first match point. But it took five more such match points for Saina to wrap up the second game.
Earlier, Prannoy outwitted World No 2 Srikanth in a thrilling finale to claim the men's singles title. Second seed Prannoy, who achieved his career-best ranking of World No 11 last week, saw off top seed Srikanth 21-15, 16-21, 21-7 in a 49-minute clash to return the favour after his semi-final loss to his compatriot at the French Open Super Series last month.
Satwik Sai Raj R and Ashwini Ponnappa, who decided to pair up just six months back, showed their prowess by beating top seed and World No 16 Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy 21-9, 20-22, 21-17 to clinch the mixed doubles crown. Ashwini added women's doubles title too to her name as she and Sikki Reddy, top seeds, defeated Prajakta Sawant and Sanyogita Ghorpade 21-14, 21-14 in the final.
Excitement soar high once Srikanth and Prannoy made it to the finals and the match turned out to be an exhilarating one as the duo displayed their repertoire of strokes and athleticism during the fast-paced rallies during the match.
Srikanth and Prannoy have played four times in their international career but it was the former who had the last laugh on the last three occasions. The only time Prannoy had beaten Srikanth was way back at the 2011 Tata Open.
Srikanth has been in the form of his life as he clinched four titles after reaching five finals this season but all the statistics didn't matter as Prannoy showed why his wins over Lee Chong Wei and Chen Long this season were no fluke. In the opening game, Srikanth rode on the series of unforced errors from Prannoy, who struggled to keep the shuttle inside the court early on.
