Russia Open badminton: Sourabh Verma enters summit clash; Kuhoo Garg-Rohan Kapoor reach mixed doubles final

Vladivostock: Former national champion Sourabh Verma stormed into his first final of the season after defeating compatriot Mithun Manjunath in straight games at the $75,000 Russia Open Tour Super 100 tournament on Saturday. The 25-year-old Indian, who is on a comeback trail after recovering from injuries, beat Mithun 21-9, 21-15 in just 31 minutes to set up a title clash with Japan’s Koki Watanabe on Sunday. Young mixed doubles pair of Kuhoo Garg and Rohan Kapoor also continued their impressive run to enter the summit clash after beating Malaysian combination of Chen Tang Jie and Yen Wei Peck here in a three-game thriller. [caption id=“attachment_4778341” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Sourabh Verma. Image courtesy: Twitter @BAI_media[/caption] The second-seeded Indian combo notched up a 21-19, 11-21, 22-20 win over the unseeded Malaysian pair in 58 minutes. They would now face Vladimir Ivanov of Russia and Min Kyung Kim of Korea in the finals. Men’s doubles pair of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla, however, couldn’t cross the semi-final hurdle as they lost 15-21, 19-21 to second-seeded local combo of Konstantin Abramov and Alexandr Zinchenko. Sourabh, who had won the Chinese Taipei Masters and finished runners-up at Bitburger Open in 2016, made a rampaging start as he zoomed to an 11-5 lead at the break after opening up a slender 3-1 advantage early on. The experienced shuttler continued his dominating run after the breather, moving to 15-6 lead and 20-7 advantage before pocketing the opening game. In the second game, Mithun played better badminton as he grabbed a 6-4 advantage, before going into the interval with a slender 11-10 lead. However, Sourabh soon turned the tables as he moved to 13-11. At 14-13, Sourabh reeled off five straight points to zoom to 19-13. Mithun tried to put up a fight but Sourabh eventually sealed the issue comfortably.