P.V. Sindhu took the bronze medal defeating Jing Yi Ting (Malaysia) 23-21, 21-9 in the losers’ final in the badminton events here on Saturday.
Gurusaidutt too was able to land the bronze medal as he overcame a fighting Rajiv Ouseph in a tough three-set thriller. The Indian won the tie that last a little over an hour at 21-15, 14-21, 21-19.
Sindhu thus made amends for her 22-20, 22-20 loss in the semifinal to Michelle Li (Canada). Wherea, the Indian looked quite tired throughout the semifinal match and was unable to stand up to the pressure applied by her rival in the crucial stages, she was a different girl in the bronze-medal match.
Apparently disappointed with her show in the morning and wanting to make up for it, she put in a lot of effort to be in the match, especially in the close first set. But once she finally managed to take it in extra points, the second was just a formality.
Earlier Parupalli Kashyap, with his fighting spirit, scripted a wonderful comeback to oust Rajiv Ouseph (England) 18-21, 21-17, 21-18 in the men’s singles semifiinals.
The second-seeded Indian, down by a set, got his touch back at the nick of time. The first game was a close affairKashyap gained a definite edge at 9-4. But Ouseph was not to be discounted easily, as he waged a hard battle to get back into the picture. He gradually negated the lead of the Indian and jumped ahead to 14-12.
Kashyap understandably seemed a bit upset at the sudden turn of events and tended to lose concentration. This came in handy for Ouseph to progress after the score line was tied at 15. The Englishman was suddenly up 19-17 and as Kashyap played a shot long and then came up with an unforced error at the net, wrapped up the set at 21-18.
Ouseph was up 3-0 in the second, but with Kashyap tossing the bird deep and pinning his opponent behind and wrong footing him at the net, go himself into the lead at 5-3. He kept up the lead all through that game to draw level.
In the third, Kashyap was at his best after taking the lead from Ouseph at 7-all. He was then to run a six-point streak to be comfortably placed at 17-10.
At 20-14, Kashyap missed a simple shot at the end of 71-stroke long rally and when Ouseph sent the shuttle to the box to his right side, the Indian threw up his arms thinking that the shuttle had gone wide. However, the line judge did not react and the chair umpire ticked a point in favour of the Ouseph. Kashyap seemed upset again as he gave away two more points before finding the door to the final with a cross-court smash at the end of the 83-minute duel. Gurusaidutt threw away a 21-16, 19-15 lead against Derek Wong. The Singaporean won 16-21, 21-19, 21-15. Defending champions Jwala Gutta and Aswhini Ponnappa had an easy outing as they reached the women’s doubles final. The Indian duo required just 27 minutes to dispose of the challenge from Malaysia’s Ly Lim and L. Jing Pei 21-7, 21-12.
