Awadhe Warriors began their 2017 Premier Badminton League (PBL-2) campaign with a commanding 5-0 victory over the Day 1 winners Hyderabad Hunters at the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad on Monday. In his comeback match, the India No. 1 men’s singles ace Srikanth Kidambi turned out to be the star of the show for the Warriors.
The World No. 15 eked out a thrilling 13-11, 7-11, 13-11 win over the Hunters’ Rajiv Ouseph after saving a couple of match points that sealed the tie for the blue brigade even before the final men’s doubles match was over.
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Earlier in the day, Saina Nehwal lost her women’s singles match to the Olympic champion Carolina Marin, 14-15, 5-11.
The 5-0 scoreline perhaps does not do much justice to how enthralling and closely-fought the entire tie was. The whitewash for the Hunters was because they lost their crucial men’s doubles Trump Match, thus earning a negative point to go down from 1-4 to 0-5.
Sai Praneeth nearly upsets World No. 17
The first match of the day went in favour of the visiting team when the World No. 17 Wong Wing Ki Vincent edged Hyderabad’s B Sai Praneeth, 11-13, 11-6, 13-11. After surrendering to Tommy Sugiarto without much fight on the opening day, it was a far better display from Sai.
Varying his shots extremely well, he put PBL-2 debutant Vincent under pressure right from the start. After a controversial call that went in favour of Praneeth late in the first game, the Hong Kong shuttler lost his focus and the momentum looked to be with Praneeth in the early stages.
But Vincent regrouped just in time, saving three match points for the victory to put the Warriors 1-0 up.
Nehwal squanders game point to go down to Marin
Carolina Marin, PBL-2’s costliest player, did not have any such problem even though Saina Nehwal did put up a mighty effort in the opening game. Nehwal came back from 5-9 down to level 9-9 and even had a game point but she could not put away an aggressive Marin.
In the second game, the Spaniard was thoroughly dominant and led 8-1 before closing out the win.
The Awadhe franchise then grabbed a vital Trump Match win in mixed doubles to go 3-1 up. Bodin Isara and Savitree Amitrapai beat the Hunters duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chau Hoi Wah, 11-9, 12-10.
Srikanth Kidambi then took the court for his first match since September as an ankle injury had kept him out of action. Oozing confidence, the Syed Modi International champion began on a positive note but could not keep a surging Rajiv Ouseph from taking the opener, 13-11.
Srikanth began the next game with an attacking intent and was able to take it this time with a score of 11-7.
There was little to separate the two in the decider. The Pullela Gopichand protégé led 6-4 at the lemon break only to see the Englishman coming back for 9-9.
As Ouseph’s shot landed long at 11-11, Srikanth got a match point which he converted soon.
With that win giving the visitors an unassailable lead of 4-1, it was all left to the Hunters men’s doubles duo of Tan Wee Kiong and Tan Boon Heong to win the Trump Match and make it a respectable score. But they failed to do so even after building up a one-game lead. The Warriors pair of Goh W Shem and Markis Kido inflicted a painful 7-11, 11-8, 13-11 defeat, which also went on to become PBL-2’s first Trump loss.
