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Indian star shuttler Subhankar Dey continued his good form at the ongoing 2018 SaarLorLux Open and reached the final after beating Ren Pengbo of China by 21-18, 11-21, 24-22 in an hour and eight-minute long match in Germany.
In the opening game, Dey took a 9-2 lead with six consecutive points from 3-2 and maintained the lead by 11-7 till the mid-game intervals. He maintained the lead after that by 15-9. Ren Pengbo tried to fight back in the back by narrowing the lead to 15-12 but Dey finally finished off the game by 21-18 in 19 minutes of play.
In the second game, the Chinese shuttlers take the seven points to lead till the mid-game interval from 4-4 to 11-4 by seven consecutive points. He increased his lead further to 19-6 with another eight consecutive points. The 25-year-old Indian shuttler tried to gain some morale-boosting points but eventually lost the game by 21-11.
In the third and deciding game, Dey initially took the 7-3 lead and held the two points, and lead till mid-game interval by 11-9 but Ren Pengbo levelled back on twelve all. After that, both shuttlers tried their best to take an edge over each other. Dey earlier failed to convert two match point opportunities when he was leading at 20-18, and after 20 he saved two match points and finally won by 24-22 in three games.
He will now be up against former European champion Rajiv Ouseph of England, which will be their first meeting at the international stage. Ouseph beat Toma Junior Popov of France by 21-8, 19-21, 21-19 in the other semifinal. Earlier, Dey had a massive win against two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan of China in the 3rd round.
In the women's singles All Chinese semifinal, no. 3 seed Cai Yanyan beat no. 1 seed Gao Fangjie by 21-14, 16-21, 21-15 in 52 minutes of play. She will be up against another Chinese player Chen Xiaoxin who beat Line Kjaersfeldt of Denmark by 12-21, 21-16, 21-17. So, there will be All Chinese Final in the Women's singles.
