Thailand Open | Sai Praneeth clinches maiden title

After losing the first game Praneeth came out fighting in the second as he quickly established a 5-0 lead. With some forceful play, the lead was soon extended to seven points with the scoreboard reading 8-1. But Christie was not quite ready to surrender just yet and over the next nine points, Praneeth could only win one as the scores were levelled at 9-9. Following the break, both players kept on exchanging points with no player able to take a two-point lead until the scoreboard read 17-15. With the wind in his sails, the Indian brought up three game points but needed just two to level the final up at a game apiece with a score of 21-18.

As the game headed into the decider, it was Praneeth who started off brightly taking a narrow 2-1 lead but much like the first game the Indonesian fought back to win six points in a row to take a 7-2 lead. This time it was Praneeth’s turn to launch a fightback and in no time the game was level at 9-9. At as the players crossed over for the last time in the tournament, it was Christie who held the slight advantage with a 11-10 lead. Errors were starting to creep into the Indonesian player’s game and the Indian took the initiative as he opened up a 17-15 advantage for himself. As the game headed to an exciting conclusion Praneeth and Christie played out the best rally of the game that ended with the Indonesian putting in a full length dive to retrieve the shuttle but ended up conceding a 17-19 lead. Even though Christie levelled the game at 19-19, Praneeth never looked like he was going to let the game slip and with a powerful body smash, he won the decider 21-19.