Orleans Masters | India’s campaign in tournament ends as Sameer Verma loses his semis encounter
PBL Media
After putting up a valiant performance throughout the Orleans Masters, India’s Sameer Verma has lost his semi-final encounter against Holland’s Mark Caljouw 21-18, 13-21, 12-21. The Indian was the only hope alive for India after Parupalli Kashyap had already lost his battle in the quarter-finals.
For Verma, his passage to the semi final was all hunky dory and although he faced a couple of huge challenges on his way to the last four, Sameer was always in the game. But the semi-final posed a completely different challenge for the Swiss Open winner and he couldn’t just find answers to Caljouw’s attacking gameplay.Â
The first game of the match was a close affair with the duo going neck to neck with each other and the Dutchman went into the break with an 11-9 lead. But after that, the Indian made a stunning comeback to showcase his potential and the Dutch star seemed not to have answers to that. Although Caljouw took the game much closer, the Indian closed the game at 21-18.Â
But, if the first set was the prelude of things to come, fans were mistaken. Caljouw knew that it was time for him to reduce the unforced errors and he did that with quite some poise while the Indian started hitting shuttles to the net, more often than not, and that resulted in the Dutch shutler winning points for fun.Â
There was actually no competition of sorts in the second and third game as Caljouw conceded only 13 and 12 points respectively to enter the final, where he will meet Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke, who ousted India’s Kashyap in the quarter-finals.Â
