Backed by a vociferous crowd, H. S. Prannoy navigated past a testing phase in the decider against a speedy Wang Tzu Wei for a place in his maiden quarterfinals of the India Open badminton in New Delhi on January 19.
In a tense third game, Prannoy bridged a 5-10 deficit to catch up at 14, surged ahead at 17-16 and converted a second match-point for a 21-17, 17-21, 21-19 triumph over the Chinese Taipei rival in 77 minutes.
The eighth seed now faces Chinese sixth seed Shi Yuqi in Saturday’s semifinals. A match that witnessed frequent exchanges of dribble, and flicks at the nets brought forth the shot-making skills of Prannoy to the fore.
He settled into a fine rhythm and enlarged a 10-3 lead to 18-5 before handing out Wang six straight confidence-boosting points. Though Prannoy sealed the opening game quickly thereafter, Wang suddenly seemed to have sorted a few of his problems.
In the second game, Wang controlled the pace better, executed some very powerful smashes on both flanks and jumped to 13-6 after claiming six straight points. Undeterred, Prannoy clawed back to win seven of the next eight points, closed the gap to 16-17 but lost four of the last five points to stare at the decider.
“Against I rival like Wang, who is so quick and sharp with his shots on the body, one has to give him 5-6 such points without feeling bad about it,”said Prannoy and continued, “after he established that big lead in the decider and I made it 9-10 and 14-all, I knew the crowd would play their part. I expected a tough match and I’m happy to come through.”
The results (quarterfinals, prefix denotes seeding):
Men singles: 8-H. S. Prannoy bt Wang Tzu Wei (Tpe) 21-11, 17-21,21-18; 6-Shi Yuqi Chn) bt Koki Watanabe (Jpn) 23-21, 21-13; Lee Chuek Yiu (HKG) bt Anthony Sinisuka Ginting (Ina) 21-17,18-21,21-13; 2-Kodai Naraoka (Jpn) bt Lee Zii Jia (Mal) 13-21, 21-9, 21-16.
Men doubles: 4-Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik (Mal) bt 8-Liu Yu Chen/Ou Xuan Yi (Chn) 21-19, 21-19; 3-Kang-Min-Hyuk/Seo Seung Jae (Kor) bt 6-Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto (Ina) 21-14, 21-18 ; 7-Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi (Jpn) bt Supak Jomkoh/Kittinupong Kedren (Tha) 21-8, 21-10.
Women singles: Yeo Jia Min (Sin) bt 1-An Se Young (Kor) 21-19, 3-0 (retd.); 4-Tai Tzu Ying (Tpe) bt He Bingjiao (Chn) 21-12, 21-12; Wang Zhi Yi (Chn) bt Busanan Ongbamrungphan (Tha) 22-20, 21-8; 2-Chen Yufie (Chn) bt Nozomi Okuhara (Jpn) 21-9, 21-13.
