Badminton: Chennai’s brilliant fightback raises semifinal hopes

Chennai Smashers spearheaded by P V Sindhu were back in the hunt in the Vodafone Premier Badminton League by taking a 2-0 lead against Bengaluru Blasters here on Monday.

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India] Jan. 09 (ANI): Chennai Smashers spearheaded by P V Sindhu were back in the hunt in the Vodafone Premier Badminton League by taking a 2-0 lead against Bengaluru Blasters here on Monday.

Playing their final match of the season in front of their home crowd at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium, Chennai’s grit was evident in the first men’s doubles match when Yang Lee and B Sumeeth Reddy made a sensational turnaround to upset Mathias Boe and Kim-Sa Ran 2-1.

They lost the first game 8-15 but showed tremendous resilience in the next two tight games by squeezing 15-14 and 15-13 win to surge ahead 1-0.

The loss was a big blow for Bangalore as they had nominated it as their Trump match but ended up with a negative point (-1).

Sindhu then took charge and upstaged Kristy Gilmour 15-9, 15-14.

Although the Scottish girl threatened to take the contest into the third game, Sindhu sealed it in a tie-breaker.

Since Chennai had slotted it as a Trump match, they ended up pocketing two points and three points overall.

The defending champions were languishing at the bottom of the eight-team standings with just nine points before their final league match but the manner in which they fought back has suddenly raised their hopes of making it to the last stage.

Keen on logging maximum points, Sindhu has paired up with Chris Adcock in the mixed doubles as well. (ANI)

This is published unedited from the ANI feed.