The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : Aditi stuns Kusumastuti

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Aditi stuns Kusumastuti

Rakesh Rao

LUCKNOW: Fourth seed Aditi Mutatkar made up for the lost opportunities and eventually brought down second seeded Indonesian Maria Febe Kusumastuti to set up the women’s singles title clash with Saina Nehwal in the $50,000 Jaypee Cup Syed Modi International Grand Prix badminton tournament here.

Saturday saw most semifinal matches throw up expected winners, with favourites Chetan Anand and Saina Nehwal producing their best form of the week.

Chetan stopped eighth seed Sai Guru Datt without being threatened during the 35-minute mismatch. Saina, who survived a close quarterfinal match last night, played to her reputation to destroy sixth seeded Swiss Jeanine Cicognini in just 24 minutes.

Star of the day

But the star of the day was Aditi. This Pune-girl carried too much ammunition for Kusumastuti in the opening game and enjoyed big leads.

She held five game points by leading 20-15. But a combination of some ordinary returns from the Indian and good anticipation from the Indonesian saw the players level at 20-all. But Aditi kept her nerves on the next two points to go one-up.

In the second, where the players were tied 6-6, Aditi broke free to lead 13-7 and 17-10 and eventually end the 34-minute contest with ease.

Dynonisus Hayom Rumbaka, the fifth seed, brushed aside unseeded Malaysian youngster Kwong Beng Chan 21-13, 21-16 in just 26 minutes. Rumbaka’s job was made easy with the fleet-footed Malaysian having an off-day. Rumbaka opened up leads of 12-6 in the first game and 9-1 in the second, to keep Kwong Beng Chan at bay.

One surprise result came in the men’s doubles where the second-seeded pair of Tarun Kola and Arun Vishnu surrendered to the Indonesian combination of Adnan Fauzi and Tri Kusumawardana.

The results (semifinals, prefix denotes seeding, Indians unless stated):

Men singles: 1-Chetan Anand bt 8-Sai Guru Datt 21-16, 21-13; 5-Dyonisius Hayom Rumbaka (Ina) bt Kwong Beng Chan (Mas) 21-13, 21-16.

Women singles: 1-Saina Nehwal bt 6-Jeanine Cicognini (Sui) 21-12, 21-10; 4-Aditi Mutatkar bt 2-Maria Febe Kusumastuti (Ina) 22-20, 21-13.

Men doubles: 1-Akshay Dewalkar and Jishnu Sanyal bt 4-Alwin Francis and Shankar Gopan 19-21, 21-8, 21-18; Adnan Fauzi and Tri Kusumawardana (Ina) bt 2-Tarun Kona and Arun Vishnu 21-17, 13-21, 21-16.

Women doubles: 3-Misaki Matsutomo and Akaya Takahashi (Jpn) bt Lotte Jonathans and Paulien van Dooremalen (Ned) 21-19, 23-21; Nadya Melati and Devi Tika Permatasari (Ina) bt Megha Merin Ninan and Prajakta Sawant 21-15, 21-8.

Mixed doubles: 3-Shruti Kurian and Tarun Kona bt Devi Tika Prematasari and Adnan Fauzi (Ina) 21-18, 19-21, 21-16; Aparna Balan and Arun Vishnu bt 4-Pradnya Gadre and Akshay Dewalkar 18-21, 22-20, 22-20.

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