PBL 2018: HS Prannoy proves to be money's worth for Ahmedabad Smash Masters in opening leg at Guwahati

There would appear to be good reason why Ahmedabad Smash Masters, one of the two new franchises in the third edition of the Premier Badminton League (PBL), paid a hefty sum of Rs 65 lakhs to buy recently crowned Indian national champion HS Prannoy.

The World No 10 shuttler, the most expensive purchase in the October auctions, was full value for his 15-10, 15-14 success over Taiwan’s Wang Tzu Wei, ranked just one spot below him on the Badminton World Federation (BWF) ladder, and playing for the other new team, North Eastern Warriors, in the opening round of matches at the Karambir Navin Chandra Bordoloi Indoor Stadium in Guwahati.

While dominating the entire match with his attacking game and iron length, Prannoy overcame a period of over-confidence in the second game, to make up a 10-14 deficit and set a new record of eight straight wins in PBL, following his unbeaten seven-match streak in the last edition. The Kerala-born Gopichand Academy trainee had earlier shared the record of seven consecutive victories with PV Sindhu, set in the first PBL.

Prannoy’s teammate, World No 1 Tai Tzu Ying, purchased for Rs 52 lakhs, literally toyed with North Eastern’s Canadian import, Michelle Li, who was unable to read her array of deceptive strokes, and often ended up either going the wrong way or sprawled out on the green canvas. With Tai, Prannoy and former Indian national champion Sourabh Verma in their ranks, the Ahmedabad side forms a powerful unit, and will be difficult for any other team to beat.

Sourabh’s younger brother Sameer, also a former national champion, and picked up by Mumbai Rockets for Rs 52 lakhs – the same figure as that doled out by other teams for the services of Taiwanese Wang Tzu Wei and Tai Tzu Ying – also out-did himself while destroying the trump card played by Delhi Dashers. The 23-year-old Madhya Pradesh native knocked out Hong Kong’s World No 15 Wong Wing Ki Vincent, ranked 15 places above him in the BWF standings, in straight games, and helped his team gain early control of the Mumbai-Delhi proceedings.

The finishing touches to the tie were put by South Korea’s charismatic doubles player, Lee Yong Dae, who sensationally retired two years ago when he was just 27. Lee, who has been ranked World No 1 for 104 weeks in the paired events in the company of four different partners, forms a formidable men’s doubles combination with 30-year-old Malaysian left-hander, Tan Boon Heong, a silver medallist at the 2010 World Championships.

For the Korean-Malaysian combination to slip it across the 2016 All-England champions, Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov of Russia, after losing the first game at deuce, was a terrific result. Lee put the icing on the cake when his doubles prowess allowed him to combine with the unknown Bulgarian Gabriela Stoeva, to easily knock out the Delhi duo of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Arathi Sara Sunil, in what was Mumbai’s trump match.

Delhi were no doubt handicapped in this event by the absence of Ashwini Ponnappa, who had taken the permission of the franchise to miss the first round of matches in Guwahati, in order to get married. Once she re-joins the squad in Delhi for the second round of matches, India’s premier female doubles player is likely to be paired with the giant Ivanov, and they will make up a combination tough to beat.

From the Guwahati round of four ties, it has become apparent that the home team, North Eastern Warriors, which played two home matches in four days, is arguably the weakest side among the eight in the league. They lost to Ahmedabad by a narrow 4-3 margin, but were brushed aside 5-2 by the Carolina Marin-led Hyderabad Hunters, with Wang Tzu Wei winning the only match for the home team, their trump, with a three-game triumph over Singapore Open Superseries champion B Sai Praneeth.

The Assam side does have a reasonably strong men’s doubles combination in Koreans Shin Baek Cheol and Kim Gi Jung, but they were a mite unlucky to lose in three tight games to Hyderabad’s Yoo Yeon Seong, another Korean, and former Indonesian world and Olympic champion Markis Kido. Shin and Kim were able to pull back two points in their men’s doubles trump match against Ahmedabad’s Hong Kong duo of Lee Chun Reginald and Law Cheuk Him, and could trouble some of the stronger teams in the rest of the league ties.

As for defending champions, Chennai Smashers, they stumbled at their very first hurdle in PBL-3, losing their first three matches to concede an unbeatable 4-0 lead to the Saina Nehwal-led Awadhe Warriors. Although Nehwal sat out the tie with a sore ankle, evading a much-anticipated match-up with the Chennai captain Sindhu, Awadhe were well served by World No 3, Kidambi Srikanth, and veteran Parupalli Kashyap, with the latter winning his trump match against youngster Daniel Farid.

Still looking back at the tie with the benefit of hindsight, it becomes apparent that the opening match, the mixed doubles, was the one that decided the final outcome. The defending champions were better served, on paper at least, by having the British husband-wife team of Chris and Gabrielle Adcock donning the yellow coloured Chennai T-shirts against the scratch Awadhe pairing of Denmark’s Christinna Pedersen and Hong Kong’s Tan Chung Man.

The fact that the latter pair had never played together in tournaments was amply evident when they failed to combine properly in the first game, and left large gaps for the World No 5 ranked Brits to exploit. Gaby controlled the net beautifully, and served better than she has for the better part of her career, as the left-handed Chris manoeuvred the rallies with his usual elan for the Chennai team to win the opening game with a degree of comfort.

But Pedersen is no bunny in the mixed event, and her combination with Joachim Fischer-Nielsen is rated among the top pairs on the international circuit. As she and the sprightly Tan began understanding each other’s movements, they were able to bridge the gaps and control the rallies better. They simply ran away with the second game, and also dominated the decider, to put their team one-up.

It may be said that the experienced British couple was a tad over-confident, particularly after the ease with which they won the opening game against the first-time Awadhe pairing. But they found it increasingly difficult to handle the deft interceptions of Tan and the exquisite control shown by the willowy Dane, both at the net and in the backcourt. One could say that Christinna Pedersen was the heroine of Awadhe’s unexpected win over the defending champs.

It is now up to Chennai to reconstruct their fortunes in New Delhi, in their next tie against Mumbai Rockets on Wednesday. The latter are well served by Sameer Verma and Korean Son Wan Ho in the two men’s singles, but their American import, Zhang Beiwen, is something of a weak link against the likes of Sindhu.

British left-hander Chris Adcock has had a chastening experience with his wife Gabrielle in the mixed doubles against Awadhe Warriors; and the Briton, with Korean Lee Yang will also have his hands, full trying to combat the wiles of Lee Yong Dae and Tan Boon Heong in the men’s doubles. Mumbai have an outstanding chance of reversing the result of the PBL-2 final against the Sindhu-led Chennai on Wednesday.