Mixed fortunes for Indians

By Prakash Padukone

SEVILLE, JUNE 4. It has been a day of mixed fortunes for the Indians in the open events of the 12th World Badminton Championships currently in progress at the San Pablo Stadium in Seville, Spain.

Most of the Indians survived in both men and women on the opening day except Shruti Kurian, who unfortunately ran into Xiao Luxi of Singapore in the first round of the ladies singles and went down fighting in three games 11-8, 5-11, 4-11.

The other three girls won but in contrasting styles. While Meenakshi and Jwala had no difficulty in putting it across their comparatively weak opponents from Bulgaria and Mexico in two games, Manjusha survived a scare from the little known Ragna Ingolfsdottir of Iceland before scraping through in three games 12-13, 13-10, 11-6.

It was a close encounter in the first two games and could have gone either way. Luckily, Manjusha used her vast experience to her advantage and comfortably romped home in the decider 11-6.

However things were exactly the opposite on the second day. While Manjusha managed to win her next two matches to reach the final round of stage 1, both Jwala and Meenakshi made their exit from the tournament going down to lesser known opponents from Estonia and Canada respectively.

Left-handed Jwala had everything going her way when she won the opening game 11-3. But she relaxed a bit in the next two games and paid the penalty by going down 8-11, 7-11. Meenakshi was too erratic in her match against Kara Solmundson of Canada and lost 11-13, 1-11.

She made too many errors from the back court specially while playing the drops. She seemed to be holding back and did not play freely.

The Indian made a good recovery in the first game after being 1-7 and 3-9 down to level the score at 10. But she could not score those vital three points and conceded the game at 11-13.

The Canadian gained confidence after winning the first game and never looked back to easily win the next for the loss of a solitary point. Both the girls lost a match which they should have won.

Manjusha, on the other hand, won comfortably over Maja Tvrdy of Slovakia 11-1, 11-2 and now plays Li Li of Singapore in the evening for a place in the second stage.

Things are going better for the Indians in the men's section where both the men's singles players - Siddharth Jain and Chetan Anand have made it to the final round of the 1st stage.

Similarly the men's doubles pair of Jaseel Ismail and Markose Bristow have also entered the final round where they are pitted against Lee Jae Jin and Chung Jae Sung of Korea.

In the men's singles matches played so far, both Siddharth and Chetan have won two rounds each.

Siddharth first scored over R. Rasmussen of France 15-1, 15-2 before winning against E. Nicolas of Spain 15-9, 15-7. Chetan was also impressive in his matches against M. Hughes of Wales and Claes Wouter of Belgium, both of which he won in straight games. The final match will be crucial for both. Siddharth will take on Shimogami of Japan while Chetan plays Boonsak of Thailand.

Both the mixed doubles combinations from India have managed to survive so far. V. Diju and P.V.V. Lakshmi scored a notable win over the more well known Canadian pair Mike Beres and Kara Solmundson 17-15, 17-16.

In fact, the Indian pair was trailing in both the games but did well to stage a comeback on both occasions.

They were down 1-9 in the first game and 3-13 in the second, but held on gamely to win the match. Jaseel Ismail and Madhumita Bisht did not have to exert much in winning their match.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Sensational record-breaking show by Anju
Next     : Mishra scores over Thipsay