Lucky break for Ashwini and Tanisha, enter final

Lucknow, December 2

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India’s Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto moved to the women’s doubles final while Priyanshu Rajawat squandered a one-game advantage to bow out in the semifinals of the Syed Modi International Super 300 here today.

Seventh seeds Ashwini and Tanisha were trailing 10-11 when the top-seeded Japanese duo of Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota conceded the match after the latter slipped and injured herself.

Error-strewn Priyanshu

Earlier, Priyanshu went down to Chi Yu Jen of Chinese Taipei. Priyanshu flourished with his crosscourt shots but his net play was not as polished as he fell into a pool of errors. The 21-year-old toiled for one hour and 14 minutes before losing 21-18 14-21 17-21.

Not much separated the two shuttlers at the beginning of the contest with Jen taking a slender lead of 11-10 at the interval. Jen continued to build on his lead after the break, racing to 15-11. But Priyanshu capitalised on Jen’s errors to take the first game. However, the inexperienced Priyanshu failed to hold on to the winning momentum.

The Indian, who had the backing of the crowd, was error-prone, giving Jen the perfect opportunity to fight back and force a decider.

In the final game, Priyanshu crumbled under pressure as errors kept flowing.