Rajiv Ouseph won the final trump match to take his Delhi Aces side to victory in the final of the Premier Badminton league on Sunday. With the win over Gurusai Dutt in the final match of the two-week tournament, Delhi made a dramatic turnaround from losing the first two ties to winning the next five - including the final against Mumbai Rockets at the Siri Fort Sports Complex.
With Ouseph's 15-11, 15-6win, Delhi won the second edition of the badminton league which started off with a name change from its initial name of Indian Badminton league.
The final score as Gurusai's backhand landed wide read 4-3 in favour of Delhi.
Great Britain's Ouseph made little of the Indian shuttler as errors rose for Gurusai's from the get go and the previous notched up his fourth win on the trot.
The most exciting match of the night saw Delhi's Koo Keat Kien and Tan Boon Heong come out on top in a neck-and-neck tie to narrowly beat Mathias Boe and Ivanov 14-15, 15-10, 15-14.
Both the pairings were involved in thrilling rallies including multiple rallies of more than 20 shots. But in the end, despite saving three match points, Mumbai's player hit a backhand wide to give Delhi a 2-1 lead in the five-match format.
In the first trump match, PC Thulasi gave Han li a scare in the first game but her game dwindled later to go down in three. She tried her best but lost 15-12, 8-15, 8-15. At this juncture, Mumbai led 3-2 and Ouseph needed to win to get the crowd to the capital rather than the financial capital.
In the second match of the tie, World No 11 Sugiarto edged India's HS Prannoy in an interesting game that meant the Indonesian finished the tournament with six wins out of six after not playing in one match. Needing 48 minutes, Sugiarto dropped the first game but eventually prevailed thanks to a wider array of shots and experience under his belt than his compatriot.
In all three games, Sugiarto went ahead at the break but in the first, he couldn't capitalise and carry it through. He led 8-5 at the break and looked comfortable - but Prannoy had other ideas.
A pumped up Prannoy turned things on its head to go on a 12-11 lead himself. With an exquisite drop shot, he brought up game point. Sugiarto saved one but couldn't save the next as a backhand error handed Prannoy the game.
It was the motivation that Sugiarto needed and he didn't let go of the momentum in either of the two next games to win the match 13-15, 15-9, 15-9 and equal things in the match.
In the first match of the day, Akshay Dewalkar and Gabrielle Adcock lost comfortably to Mumbai's Kamilla Juhl and Vladimir Ivanov by 6-15, 12-15 to give the 'visitors' the lead.