On Thursday Delhi Acers needed a remarkable comeback to pick up their first win of the Premier Badminton league over the Hyderabad Hunters. They were all but out by the end of the third match - only to win their trump match and the subsequent men's doubles match to win 4-1 in the end.
Fast-forward to Friday and after the third match against Bengaluru Topguns, Delhi had already won the tie leaving the final two matches — women's singles and mixed doubles inconsequential. The final scoreline read 5-2 in favour of Delhi.
With the win, Delhi remained top of the table with 15 points. Bengaluru on the other hand stayed fifth with 8 points.
Though, there was a comeback in this tie too and the biggest of the tournament so far. Rajiv Ouseph who had beaten India's number 2 Parupalli Kashyap on Thursday, added the number 1 Kidambi Srikanth to his list of victims.
The Briton came from a game down to beat a Srikanth who had been in pulsating form in the first game. Srikanth was his usual attacking best in the first pushing the World No 17 to both sides of the court and capping the final point with a smash aimed at Ouseph's body. The Indian had dominated early proceedings to win the first 15-4.
The second proved to be an even affair. Srikanth was down 7-8 at the break. Both players were only able to string two points together at the most before other would bring parity.
From there, Srikanth's unforced error count started to rise aiding Ouseph's chance to stage a comeback. And the Briton made no mistake in making most of this advantage. As Srikanth's forehand went wide, the match was headed to a decider — which looked unlikely based on the first game.
Even though Srikanth saved one match point in the final game, which was again riddled with errors, he couldn't save the second with poor shot selection to lose the final game 9-15.
The result meant Srikanth had slumped to his second defeat in four matches in the tournament while Ouseph had won his second in three.
Earlier, Ajay Jayaram made little of Asian Junior medallist Sameer Verma to dispatch him in under half an hour with a scoreline of 15-11, 15-12.
In a rapid-fire first game lasting only 11 minutes, both players attacked well from the back of the court along with a flurry of neat exchanges at the net. Eventually, Jayaram won the first game 15-11.
In the second, Jayaram played a wonderful point where he was made to move all around the court by Verma - brought to the net, made to return a smash aimed at his body, shots in the final third only to come out trumps with a sensational smash that the youngster couldn't return and take a 8-2 lead.
Thereafter, Verma turned things around on its head to win 10 of the next 12 points to take a 12-10 lead. But just as it looked like things were getting awry for Jayaram, he won the next five points with a Verma error ending the match.
This early advantage was helped further by the doubles pairing of Koo Keat Kien and Tan Boon Heong who also dispatched their Bengaluru opponents in straight games. Delhi won the final match of the night to seal the tie in their favour to leave the crowd in ruptures.
Acers beat Topguns 5-2
Ajay Jayaram beat Sameer Verma 15-11, 15-12; Koo Keat Kien/Tan Boon Heong beat Hoon Thien How/Khim Wah lim 15-9, 15-10; Rajiv Ouseph beat Kidambi Srikanth 4-15, 15-11, 15-9; Shikha Gautam lost to Suo Di 5-15, 6-15; Gabrielle Adcock/Koo Keat Kien beat Ashwini Ponappa/Khim Wah lim 15-14, 9-15, 15-12.