Awadhe Warriors squashed the Pune Pistons by 3-2 as both teams reserved their semifinal berths at the inaugural Indian Badminton League (IBL) on Monday.
Actually, the Lucknow-based team hauled four points with the victory and dominated the standings with 16 points while the Pistons are on 16 too but have lost more games in the tournament.
Notably, in the opening men's singles rubber, Warriors' K. Srikanth led his team by 1-0 as he hammered Saurabh Verma by 21-18, 21-16. After the victory, Srikanth admitted that he had a very good start and he thinks this was his kind of style. Truly, shuttle speed was much better compared to Bangalore which helped him to win.
On the other side, in the women's singles title, P.V. Sindhu won the match against Juliane Schenk of Pune Pistons in straight games. Remarkably, the Warriors dominated by 2-0 as their icon player won by 21-20, 21-20. The 18-year-old 2013 World Championship bronze medalist expressed that she has played against Schenk twice but this is the first time she won and she is feeling really glad. She is thrilled and touched too to see her college friends and teachers who have arrived to support her.
Meanwhile, Mathias Boe and Markis Kido combo of the Warriors won their men's doubles rubber against Arun Vishnu and Sanave Thomas by 21-15, 21-16 to seal the tie at 3-0. Boe commented that it was another day at office. He and Kido were ruling by four or five points throughout the match today and had wholly controlled the game.
In fact, the Pistons returned well and won the 2nd men's singles and mixed doubles rubbers as well as qualified for the semifinals along with their rivals. Further, Pistons' Tien Minh Nyugen won the 2nd men's singles rubber by 21-12, 21-18 against R.M.V. Gurusaidutt. Nyugen expressed that he is delighted that his team qualified for semifinals following he won the match. Actually, one side of the court was slow while the other one was too fast. He attempted to keep the shuttle down all the time so that he could win as many points as possible.
In the final mixed doubles event, Pistons' icon player Ashwini Ponnappa along with partner Joachim Fischer Nielsen thrashed the brother-sister combo Markis Kido and Pia Bernadeth by 21-16, 21-14.
Ashwini remarked after the victory that Fischer is a very experienced player and keeps correcting her mistakes. She is happy that her team worked hard together to qualify for the semis. As far as her game is concerned, she couldn't have played better than this.
