PBL 3 Tie 16: Hyderabad trounced Lucknow, Praneeth wins maiden match

Awadhe Warriors ended their Tie matches with the massive mislay by the Hyderabad Hunters, who registered the victory in the Tie with 6-(-1) making the former to deduct a point at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium here in the Premier Badminton League on Sunday. And with this win, Hyderabad Hunters jumped from bottom to the top in the PBL standings with 14 points, the biggest possible margin.

Hyderabad’s Trump player Marin was instinctive in crossing the hurdle against Saina, and with in no time, Spectators were easily convinced it to be the Hunters’ day. Saina managed well in the beginning, but too many unforced errors from her in the first game made easy for the Olympic champion, who also excelled with cross court smashes and took the game with 15-5.

In the second game, Saina was expected to hit the Spaniard back with the win, which she did initially by saving two early points with the baseline precision. But, Marin was not going to give up that easily; she cruised to lead 4-3 with her forehand returns to the Saina’s backhand and went down the wire to mark the victory over brawny Saina with 15-7 in no time.

Previously, after losing the opening two Ties, Warriors challenged with the Trump from Srikanth Kidambi against B Sai Praneeth to raise the hopes for the team. But it was a lost cause as Praneeth won his maiden match in PBL-3 to suppress Srikanth.

With his amazing smashes and deceptive shots, Srikanth could do his best initially, but Praneeth soon caught the World No. 3 with his mastery deft drop shots and cross court hard smashes to win the first game with 15-10.

Hungry and gritty in the second game, Praneeth just cruised to the half time with clean 8-0 lead and had been unstoppable; thrashed his compatriot with 15-10.

Parupalli Kashyap, who has been in his stellar form this season, started with the dominating returns and continued with his proceedings in the first game proving no match with his power smashes for the 37-year-old Lee Hyun II. Indian was with four-point advantage at the halftime, from where Lee quickly gathered three points and went forward with forehand smashes. But Lee too brought out his best strokes and soon was breathing down Kashyap's neck at 11-10 after two back to back cross court smashes. The game went to and fro for a while before Kashyap sealed the game after Lee hit two consecutive shots that landed wide.

In the second game Lee stretched ahead quickly hitting a superb down the line forehand into Kashyap's body and quickly was 8-3 up at the break. The gritty Kashyap held on but it wasn't enough to diffuse his South Korean opponent as he came back into the match winning the second game 15-9. The Korean frustrated Kashyap in the decider and it was a matter of a few minutes before he wrapped up the game in Hunters' favour.

In the first match of the day Hunters' Markis Kido and Yoo Yeon Seong defeated the pair of Or Chin Chung and Tang Chun Man 14-15, 15-6, 15-11.