Praneeth, Tai Tzu shine for Raptors
Lucknow, Jan. 27: World Championships bronze medallist B. Sai Praneeth notched up his first win of the season while World No. 2 Tai Tzu Ying continued her winning streak as the Bengaluru Raptors met the Pune 7 Aces at the Premier Badminton League here on Monday.
Having never played Yew on the BWF World Tour, the World No. 11 Sai took some time to figure out the Singaporean. Yew was coming after the high of beating 2014 Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap in the Pune’s first tie of the season.
Sai never relented and was able to maintain his aggression. The flurry of attacking shots from Sai’s end took the wind out of Loh’s sails as the Raptors star raced away to a 10-15, 15-7, 158 win.
In the women’s singles clash between former World No. 1 Tai
Tzu and Pune’s Rituparna Das turned out to be lopsided as the former Indian national champion really struggled to keep up with the Chinese Taipei ace. Tai was fully in control of every aspect of the game before pocketing the opener 15-3.
The scene completely changed in the second game as Das relied on some exquisite placement of the shuttle to put Tai in a spot of bother. Infusing her strokes with a lot of power, Das built a strong lead of 9-5 but her advantage soon got erased once Tai found her rhythm before finishing it off 15-3, 15-9 for her third win of the season.
Earlier, 22-year-old talent, Ansal Yadav gave a good account of himself on his debut against World No. 71 Kazumasa Sakai of the Aces. Showing oodles of determination, the Bengaluru player went down fighting to Sakai 14-15, 9-15.