Mumbai: Saina Nehwal once again proved her supremacy and pinned down PV Sindhu for the second time in the finals of the Indian Badminton League and brought Hyderabad Hotshots back into the contest against Awadhe Warriors after S Tanongsak was stunned by the Warriors K Srikanth in the first singles match here on Saturday.
Thereafter, Malaysian men's doubles team of Goh V Shem and Wah Lim Khim gave Hotshots a 2-1 lead as they got the better of Danish-Indonesian pair of Mathias Boe and Markis Kido 21-14 13-21, 11-4.
Later, Ajay Jayaram made it 3-1 for Hotshots after he came back from behind to beat RMV Gurusaidutt 10-21, 21-17, 11-7 in 52 minutes to help the Hotshots win the top prize of Rs 3.5 crore. Warriors took home Rs 1.75 crore.
Srikanth won the match by 21-12, 21-20 and gave Awadhe Warriors the head start that they were looking for in this final match of the IBL.
Earlier, World Number 38, K Srikanth gave quite a tough time to the Thai world Number 19 S Tanongsak and finally stunned him in a thrilling encounter. Srikanth took an early lead of 7-5 and kept his dominance through the midway of this encounter and was way ahead with 14-10 in the first men’s singles of the evening. Srikanth went onto claim this opening game by 21-12.
In second game, a fight back was expected from Tanongsak but Srikanth raced away with a lead of 7-2. Srikanth was giving the scare to Thai, who was one of the undefeated players of the tournament so far. The Indian did manage to keep his ascendancy with 14-8. Tanongsak however made much needed comeback in this contest and game went down to the wire but Srikanth held his nerve to claim it by 21-20.
Later, Saina once again beat Sindhu to level the score Hotshots 1-2. Saina breezed past her compatriot by 14-9 in the opening game. Late resistance from Sindhu did get her team, Awadhe warriors, back into the match but that couldn’t make any significant difference as Saina claimed the game by 21-15.
The second game of the second match of the evening turned out to be a one-sided contest and Saina won the game by 21-7 to get the equalizer for her team.
