World No. 8 Son Wan Ho proved to be a tall order for the 24-year-old B Sai Praneeth in their very first showdown. The two met in the second round of the Korea Open Superseries in Seoul on Thursday where the Korean, who is seeded sixth at this event, showed his class for a 21-9, 21-15 victory. The match lasted just 34 minutes.
Wan Ho had come to this tournament after a superb show at the Japan Open Superseries last week where he made it to the semi-finals whereas the Indian had bowed out in the opening round. The 36th ranked Indian, however, did begin the Korea Open Superseries on a positive note and had accounted for the World No. 26 Hsu Jen Hao, 21-13, 12-21, 21-15 in the first round.
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It was still not enough against someone of the calibre of Wan Ho. The huge gulf in the rankings and experience were evident throughout the match as Sai thoroughly struggled to counter the Korean’s jump smashes. The sixth seed kept on choosing the right moments to execute the smash and Sai’s lack of anticipation was laid bare time and again.
The first game was totally a one-way traffic where Wan Ho asserted himself very early in the match for a 7-4 lead which he extended to 11-6 by the mid-game interval. The big gap only kept on increasing as the young Indian’s errors kept on mounting. From 13-7, Wan Ho raced ahead to 19-7 and then grabbed the game 21-9.
Sai Praneeth made a better start to the second game and remained competitive till 5-4. With a lot more aggression and some great reflexes at the net, he did manage to extract a few errors from his experienced rival. But the sixth seed soon wrestled the momentum away and jumped to 11-7 by the lemon break.
As Sai’s game became riddled with errors once again, the Korean surged ahead to 15-9 and then quickly reached match point at 20-10. However, with such a big lead, the Korean appeared to relax a bit and that did not help him. Sai made use of that opportunity and clinched five points in a row to close in on 15-20.
Just when it looked like the Indian was all set for an incredible comeback, the Korean slammed shut the match.
With Sai’s exit, all Indian hopes now rest on Ajay Jayaram who takes on Huang Yuxiang for a quarter-final berth later today.
