Lucknow: The 2012 men’s doubles Olympic Champion Cai Yun of China and Bodin Issara of Thailand teamed up to lead Awadhe Warriors to a convincing victory over Delhi Aces when the Chinese-Thai pair beat Malaysian duo Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong 2-0 in India’s Premier Badminton League on Monday.
The Olympic champion Cai Yun showed he still has some more fuel left in the tank to survive the battle by clinching the last two points both with a sharp smash and with a brilliant serve which left Koo/Tan clueless. Awadhe Warriors led by 3-1 after their men’s doubles victory.
Awadhe Warriors got off to a shaky start when their first men’s singles player S Tanongsak lost to Tommy Sugiarto of Delhi Aces 13-15, 11-15 in 37 minutes.
Then, Saina Nehwal, who had a foot injury and did not participate in the inaugural match on Saturday, got the crowd fired up when she employed a dominant performance against P. C. Thulasi in the second match, beating Thulasi 15-9, 15-10 in the women’s singles match and put her team ahead with 2-1 since Awadhe Warriors had selected that match as the ‘Trump match’.
“Thulasi started well, and I enjoyed playing net shots with her,” said Nehwal after the match.
“It’s good to win my first match of the league, especially when it was a Trump match,” added Nehwal.
After the men’s doubles match, B Sai Praneeth then added another point for Awadhe Warriors when he picked up a 15-12, 15-9 win over Rajiv Ouseph of England before Hendra Gunawan/K Maneesha lost their mixed doubles match to Akshay Dewalkar/Gabrielle Adcock in the mixed doubles match. The final result of the tie was 4-1 in favor of Awadhe Warriors.
Read article below to understand how the ‘Trump Match’ works:
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