Sourabh Verma vs Lee Cheuk Yiu Live Score and Commentary New Zealand Open Quarter-finals

Lee wraps up the match, 21-19, 21-16

Sourabh saves one...16-20

And the Hong Kong ace reaches match points at 20-15

Lee is now two points away from the win at 19-15

He gets one point for 14-18

Does Verma have it in him to push one last time? The current situation doesn't seem to suggest so

18-13 for Lee

The gap is slowly increasing now....it is 16-11 for the World No. 88 now.

And Lee extends it to 14-10

After the break, it is 13-9 for Lee...not much change of fortunes for either.

And, in a repeat of the first game, Lee leads 11-6 at half-time.

Lee up to 10-6

And once more, Sourabh is not able to hold on to his momentum....he lets the Hong Kong player push ahead to 8-4

But Verma manages to regroup and get two consecutive points for 4-5

And Lee races ahead to 5-2. Time is running out for Sourabh here.

SECOND GAME

Again Lee makes the better start of the two. It's 2-1

Too near, yet so far for Verma! Can he push that setback aside and focus on getting the second game?

Lee bags the opener, 21-19

Lee dashes Verma's hopes to get to game points...20-18

And it is back to 18-18

And the World No. 37 is in THE LEAD now!!! Sourabh is up 18-17

And after a LONG RALLY, Verma is back! 16-16

And once more, Verma roars back to 15-16...pretty close now!

It's still a TWO-POINT gap. Lee ahead at 16-14

Lee halts the Verma comeback and goes up to 15-13.

Can he continue?

Finally, Verma seems to have found some of his fighting spirit back. He takes FOUR points on the trot to make it 12-14

And the confident Lee is marching ahead....now at 14-8

It is 12-8 for the lower-ranked player

But Lee still manages to lead 11-6 at half-time.

Verma makes it 6-10

Lee shoots to 10-5. Verma must bring in some change to his strategy.

Lee still maintains a 3-point lead at 7-4

And makes it 3-6

Finally the seventh seed stops his march for 2-6

Lee adds three more quick points to go up to 6-1. Verma is struggling.

But the World No. 88 inches ahead to 3-1

It is 1-1 to begin things with.

The match is under way!

The match is expected to begin in about 10-15 minutes.

Good morning and welcome to the Sportskeeda liveblog of the New Zealand Open quarter-finals. Two Indians have made it to the last-eight with the World No. 37 Sourabh Verma being first up against the World No. 88 Lee Cheuk Yiu. This is their first meeting.

Verma held his nerves in the third round for a thrilling three-game win over the US Open runner-up Parupalli Kashyap. He should be the favourite in this clash to reach the semis.

Sourabh Verma vs Lee Cheuk Yiu Live Score and Commentary New Zealand Open Quarter-finals

Lee beats Verma, 21-19, 21-16