Tai beats Sindhu as Bengaluru win
Having put Sindhu on the backfoot, Tai kept going for her smashes to lead 139 in the last set. With Sindhu’s smash landing wide, the highly anticipated match ended in an 11-15, 15-13, 15-9 victory for Tai, sealing the tie for the Bengaluru Raptors.
Hyderabad, Jan. 31: World No. 2 Tai Tzu Ying edged world champion P.V. Sindhu in the most-awaited clash to take Bengaluru Raptors to victory over Hyderabad Hunters in the showdown between the last two years’ champions at the Premier Badminton League at the GMC Balayogi Sats Indoor Stadium here on Friday. This was the first triumph of the season for the defending champions Raptors after suffering three losses on the trot.
Tai came out as the stronger of the two, making a fast start to go up to 30. It, however, did not take the Rio Olympic silver medallist long to level matters. Finding her trademark smashes, she made it 3-3 before moving ahead to 8-5 as the Chinese Taipei ace seemed to be struggling to figure out Sindhu.
Having put Sindhu on the backfoot, Tai kept going for her smashes to lead 13-9 in the last set. With Sindhu’s smash landing wide, the highly anticipated match ended in an 11-15, 15-13, 159 victory for Tai, sealing the tie for the Raptors.
Playing the Trump for Hyderabad was a huge responsibility for Sourabh Verma against Brice Leverdez who has a 2-2 record against him on the BWF circuit. In a tight opening game that tested the grit of both the shuttlers, it was the Raptors player who emerged with flying colours as he pocketed
● the first game 15-12.
The next game saw a complete turnaround of fortunes. Verma upped the ante midway through the game, leaving the Frenchman complete dumbstruck. Hitting his smashes with precision, Verma soared to a 9-7 lead and carried on that momentum to level the match at one game apiece.
Sourabh made one a lastditch effort to bag a couple of points before Leverdez targeted his backhand corner to push the shuttle to and wrap up the 15-12, 1015, 15-6 victory, which was also his first win of the fifth season.
Earlier, the defending champions were given a great start by their men’s doubles pair of Chan Peng Soon and Rian Agung Saputro who held their nerves to beat Hyderabad’s Ben Lane and Vladimir Ivanov 15-13, 9-15, 15-12.