New Zealand GPG: HS Prannoy and Sourabh Verma knocked out of the tournament
Getty
India’s campaign at the New Zealand Grand Prix Gold came to an end after HS Prannoy and Sourabh Verma lost their respective quarter-final matches on Friday. While fourth seed Prannoy was upset by 11th seed Yu Hsien Lin 21-10, 20-22, 23-21, Verma was beaten by Cheuk Yiu Lee 21-19, 21-16.
In the first game, Prannoy and Hsein were level at 8-8 but the latter managed to secure three points quickly to take an 11-10 lead at the interval. After the break, the Chinese Taipei star found it really easy to secure 10 successive points, thus sealing the opening game 21-10.
The second game was levelled at 5-5, but Prannoy opened up a five-point lead soon, taking the score to 13-8. The Taipei shuttler, though, didn’t lose hope and fought back strongly to take the score to 20-17. Prannoy, however, was not in the mood to let the game slip away from his hands as he caught him at 20-20 and holding on to his nerve and serve, he won the next two points on offer to push the match to the decider.
Just like the second game, both were tied at 20-20 in the third game, but this time the Chinese Taipei 11th seed struck where it mattered to earn two crucial points that helped him seize the 66-minute contest and a place in the semi-finals.Â
Earlier, the seventh-seeded Verma went down to Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee in straight games 21-19, 21-16 to lose out on a place in the semi-finals.
It was only the first game where Verma managed to give some fight as the score was levelled at 16-all. However, Lee took command over the game to win it 21-19. Verma failed to match
