Rising Indian doubles duo of Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Jerry Chopra stunned World No. 7 Koreans Kim Gi Jung and Kim Sa Rang in an edge-of-the-seat semifinals to seal their maiden Grand Prix Gold final, while K Srikanth also stormed into the men’s singles final at the Syed Modi International here on Saturday.
The World No. 36 Indian combo punched over their weight when they edged out Gi Jung and Sa Rang, the two-time World Championship bronze medallist pair, 25-23, 13-21, 21-17 in a match that lasted an hour and four minutes.
Kim Sa Rang, who hit the net twice to hand over the match to the Indian pair in the decider, found the loss a bitter pill to swallow and broke all the racquets in his bag in anger after the match. He was also shown the yellow card for throwing his racquet after the defeat.
Earlier, India’s ace shuttler K Srikanth cruised into the finals of $120,000 event with a lop-sided straight-game win over Thailand’s Boonsak Ponsana in the semifinals of the men’s singles.
In a completely one-sided contest, Srikanth made mince meat of 11th seed Ponsana 21-14, 21-7 in 32 minutes to set up a summit clash with China’s Huang Yuxiang, who edged out fellow compatriot Shi Yuqi 17-21, 22-20, 21-12 in a thrilling semifinal.
Among others in fray, Commonwealth Games silver medallists Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa failed to break the Korean pair of Jung Kyung Eun and Shin Seung Chan and went down sheepishly 14-21, 16-21 in a women’s doubles match.
Pranaav and Akshay played out of their skin to set up a summit clash with unseeded Malaysian combination of V Shem Goh and Wee Kiong Tan, who dispatched top seeds Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark 21-16, 21-18 in another semifinal clash.
