Tough journey for the Indians at the Dutch Open; Ashwini-Satwik lost in the semis

The Indian mixed doubles pair, Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksai Raj lost in the Semi-finals at Dutch Open; in the 37 minutes contest against Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith of England with 21-14, 21-18.

In the opener, the English pair grabbed the early lead and somehow caught by the Indians at 5-5.

Letting the opponents to win consecutive points, the Indians gave an abrupt comeback to equalize the score before the break at 10-10. With winning the point at the half time, the England pair scored 5 straight points to reach 15-10 to trail the Indians. Continuing their good form, Marcus and Lauren focused towards the game and wrapped the game with 21-14 against the Indian duo.

Affected by the loss in the first game, the Indians gave some good rallies in the second game after exchanging the leads from hand-to-hand. The players had some close encounters till 9-8 with Indians as the upper hand, yet failed to maintain the same flow after the interval and lost after the English pair wrapped up the match with 21-18.

The Ashwini-Satwik pair was the sole survivors of the Indian squad; displayed an outstanding spirit without losing any hope. Not to forget, here are the few players who gave their best and remarkable performances and had unexpected losses in their respective pre-quarters.

Pre-quarters:

Subhankar Dey, in the pre-quarters match of men’s singles, after showing some good dominance in the first game to seal with 21-14, had neck-to-neck encounter against the fifth seeded Emil Holst of Denmark, and lost with 20-22 in the second game. Dey, in the decider, allowed his opponent to grab the early lead and trailed by 0-8, and let Emil seize the game effortlessly with 21-11. While, Ruthvika lost her match to Beiwen Zhang of USA with 21-11, 21-13 in 26 minutes in Women’s Singles.

Another mixed doubles Indian pair, Manu Atri and Maneesha K, couldn’t make their way to quarters after losing to the sixth seeded Jacco Arends and Selena Piek of Netherlands with 21-13, 21-14 in 31 minutes. In the men’s doubles, B. Sumeeth Reddy lost to the local shuttlers Jelle Maas and Robin Tabeling with 21-13, 22-20 pairing with Manu Atri.

Satwiksai Raj who displayed superb performance in the mixed doubles with Ashwini Ponnappa, had an easy loss in the men’s doubles category with Chirag Shetty against the Taiwan duo Liao Min Chun and Cheng Heng Su with 21-17, 21-14 in 35 minutes.

Women’s double pair, Maneesha K and Arathi Sara Sunil suffered the loss against Anggia Shitta Awanda and Ni Ketut Mahadewi Istarani of Indonesia. In the first game the Indian pair maintained the stride with the opponents, yet lost with 21-16. In second game, the duo struggled to save points but couldn’t stretch the game and eventually lost with 21-11.

The tough loss of Rahul:

Rahul Yadav Chittaboina, the Indian who was an inch close to progress into the next round, lost after the tough and close battle against Alexander Roovers of Germany in the 58 minute encounter. The match was tough for Rahul, since the first game, as both the players got the game point chance at 20-20 where the Indian took away the first game with 22-20. In the second game, the German kept on with the tough rallies and stretched the game to the decider with 23-21. In the final game, Rahul couldn’t continue with the same spirit, losing the pace and suffered the loss 13-21.