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The top-seeded women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy went down fighting to the unseeded Korean combine of Baek Ha Na and Jung Kyung Eun in the final of the Hyderabad Open Super 100 badminton tournament on Sunday. The Indians squandered a good start to lose the final 17-21, 17-21.
The top seeds broke away from a 4-4 tie in the first game to take an 8-5 lead which they extended to 11-8 at the time of the mid-game interval. However, the Koreans injected aggression into their shots after the break and came storming back to deny the Indians any chance.
After levelling the score at 15-15, the unseeded combine went ahead to 17-15. The Indians could take only a couple of points after that as Baek and Jung wrapped up the opener 21-17.
With the confidence of having a game lead, the Koreans began the second game in fine fashion and kept adding to their points tally to increase the gap between the two teams. From 8-6 they went ahead 11-7 at the time of the interval.
The Indians fought hard for every point on the resumption and their brilliant placements helped them reduce the difference to just two points. However, the determined Koreans never let them even the score and from 17-15, they raced ahead to 21-17 to finish the match in 43 minutes in front of a disappointed home crowd.
Earlier, Sourabh Verma brought delight to the fans by winning the men's singles title. The World No. 44 edged past World No. 41 Loh Kean Yew 21-13, 14-21, 21-16 in 52 minutes to be crowned the champion.
The women's singles final turned out to be a thriller where the top seed Yeo Ji Min had to dig deep to prevail over the second seed An Se Young 12-21, 21-17, 21-19 in a marathon final that lasted 1 hour 13 minutes.
