Indian badminton ace Parupalli Kashyap gave a testimony of his fighting skills as he eked out a three-game win over the World No. 100 Pannawit Thongnuam for a place in the main draw of the 2016 Korea Open Superseries in Seoul on Tuesday. The Indian came back from a game down to edge past the Thai, 15-21, 21-16, 21-15. The match lasted 56 minutes.
This was Kashyap’s second three-game match of the day. Earlier in the morning, he had produced a gutsy effort to save three match points in order to beat the 815th ranked Korean Ko Gyung Bo, 15-21, 23-21, 21-19.
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The 30-year-old was the only Indian in action in the qualifying rounds of this tournament. He thus joins his compatriots Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, Ajay Jayaram and B Sai Praneeth in the main draw of the men’s singles event and will be looking to perform well.
Third tournament for Kashyap after return from knee injury
For the former World No. 6 Kashyap, this is just his third tournament since coming back from a knee injury that robbed him of a chance to participate in the Rio Olympics. As a result, his ranking has taken a massive tumble and he is currently placed at the 107th spot.
But Kashyap’s hunger and determination remain the same as ever and he proved it twice today. In both the games, he faced younger, spirited opponents who started strong. Yet, Kashyap was able to produce some stiff resistance as the matches wore on and make a winning comeback each time.
Much like his first round of qualifying, he quickly went down 15-21 in the opening game even in his final round of qualifying. But Kashyap regrouped soon to start the second game on a positive note.
The Indian broke away from 5-5 to jump to an 11-6 lead at the mid-game interval. Even though Thongnuam managed to reduce the deficit, Kashyap grabbed the second game 21-16 with a strong show.
With momentum on his side, Kashyap made a blazing start to the deciding game and took a 4-1 lead which he extended to 11-3 at the lemon break. He did not relinquish the lead at any point in the second half of the game and soon wrapped it up 21-15.
With India having many participants in the main draw for the competition, there will be a lot of expectations for a decent showing from the shuttlers.
