Harsheel Dani lifts Dutch International title
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Former junior national champion Harsheel Dani won the 20th Victor Dutch International title on Saturday as he beat Denmark’s Mads Christophersen in a thrilling three-game match. After Kartik Jindal, Prashi Joshi, Utkarsh Arora and Karishma Wadkar bowed out in semis, Dani was India’s only hope.
Dani started the match on the back foot as Christophersen had opened up a massive five-point lead at the break. Though Dani managed to reduce the deficit to three points 13-16, he could win just two more points as Christophersen went on to win it 21-15.
The second game was expected to be tough and Dani started off on a positive note taking a five-point lead in 6-1 early on before leading 11-3 at the break. A nine-point lead was difficult to cut short for the Danish but all he could do was to reduce it to five points at 15-10 before Dani leveled the match with a 21-12 win.
The decider was expected to a close one as Dani had given his all in the second game and it couldn’t get any tighter. After going toe to toe till 10-10, Dani led at the break and thereafter started capitalizing on it. He opened up a huge eight-point lead at 18-10, which killed the game and the closest Christophersen came was at 20-13, before the Indian sealed the decider 21-13.
A former junior national champion, 22-year-old Dani had to miss out almost eight months of action last year as he had to undergo an ankle surgery. However, winning the 47-minute match against the world number 149 surely gave him a confidence boost. Dani had also won the Ghana international last year soon after returning from his injury break, when he had beaten sixth seed Jacab Nilsson of Sweden in the semi-finals.
