Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy vs Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith Dutch Open 2017 Mixed Doubles Semi-final

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Goodbye!

And with that loss, the Dutch Open campaign comes to an end for Indian shuttlers.

That was quite a decent effort from the Indian pair despite the final result not going their way. Quite a promising show considering the fact that they are playing regularly for just three tournaments.This bodes well for the future. Many more good things are definitely going to come their way in the near future.

Final score: Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith beat Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, 21-14, 21-18.

Ellis and Smith take it, 21-18.

And yet another is saved....18-20

Ellis finds the net and one match point is saved.

The Indians now face four match points at 16-20

Ashwini and Satwik are now behind at 15-19....a late surge?

In his urgency to go for powerful body shots, Satwik is making errors. The English are ahead 18-13

Ashwini finds the open court and makes it count......Indians are now at 13-16

The lob from the Indians misses the corner, sending the English up 15-12

Ellis repeatedly targeting Ashwini and it is paying off....the eighth seeds go up to 14-11

And it is slipping away from the Indians just like the first game....the qualifiers are 10-13 behind.

Absolute repeat of the first game.....the Indians remained in the hunt till nearly the half-time before conceding easy points.

The English head into the interval with a lead of 11-9.

Much like the first half of the first game, the second game too continues to be even. The teams are now locked at 8-8.

The Indians level it at 3-3 and take a mini lead at 4-3

And they build on their mini lead for 3-1

Second Game

2-0 for the English pair

It was a good fight by the Indians in the first half but they just fell apart after the interval.

The English pair wraps up the first game, 21-14

Six game points for the English at 20-14

But their mini momentum is over as the English advance to 19-14

14-18 now...slowly and steadily they are coming back

Big Smash by Satwik! The Indians now trail 13-18

Ellis finds a way through the middle of the court and they go up to 17-12.

It is 16-12 now after a rapid exchange

4-point lead for the English at 15-11

Can they make a comeback here?

And now they trail 10-14

The gap is widening further after the break and the Indians trail 10-13

A backhand from Satwik lands wide and it is 11-10 to the English pair heading into the interval.

Not much to separate the two....10-10 now

All level once more...9-9

Ashwini targets the corner and it pays off!

They trail 8-9

The Indians trail 7-8 after service error from the 8th seeds

WHAT A RESPONSE FROM SATWIK!!!!

He smashes and makes it 6-7

They extend to to 7-5 now

Mistake from Ashwini and the English go up to 6-5

And we are LEVEL....5-5

The 8th seeds go up to 5-3 but the Indians trying to make a comeback and trail 4-5

The English pair takes a slim 3-2 lead....early days

Here we go! The match is under way!

It is 1-1

The match was supposed to begin at 9pm IST. So it will begin any moment now. Stay tuned for live updates.

As we wait for it to begin, read how they made it till the semi-finals.

Good evening and welcome to the Sportskeeda liveblog of the Dutch Open 2017 semi-final. No Indian has reached the final of any Grand Prix event this year and Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy are looking to become the first Indians to do so.

In just their third tournament together since forming a regular partnership, they have made it to the semi-finals of a Grand Prix tournament. They have shown excellent co-ordination throughout the tournament. They qualified for this tournament and started off their main draw journey by upsetting the seventh seeds Robin Tabeling and Cheryl Seinen in the very first round.

Can they keep it going by showing the exit door to the eighth seeds Lauren Smith and Marcus Ellis in this match?

Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy vs Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith Dutch Open 2017 Mixed Doubles Semi-final

Ponnappa and Rankireddy lose the semi-final, 14-21, 18-21.