PBL 2017: MATCH REPORT -- Awadhe beat North Eastern Warriors 4-3; lose third consecutive tie

THE STRUGGLE FOR North Eastern Warriors continues as they lost their third consecutive tie 3-4, this time against Awadhe Warriors.

The tie began with mixed doubles contest between Kim Gi Jung/Prajakta Sawant (NE Warriors) and Tang Chun Man/Christinna Pedersen (A Warriors). It was the Warriors' trump match and they were put under immense pressure early on from the Awadhe pair as Prajakta displayed her best performance.

With the lead they managed to get in the start, it looked like there was an upset on cards. It was a closely contested battle that went down to the last point but Christinna/Tang Chun kept their nerves and took the important two points lead for the team. They won 15-14, 15-13.

Parupalli Kashyap furthered the lead by winning his match quite comfortably beating a struggling and not fully fit Ajay Jayaram 15-9, 15-12.

Fans finally got to see Saina Nehwal in action as she missed out playing in the opening tie of the season. She had a good chance to seal the tie for her team. She was up against Canadian Michelle Li.

And this was the first three-game battle of this tie and a nerve-wrecking one. Fans were cheering for every point that was won by the former World No. 1. In the first game, Saina looked rusty as she was coming in from an injury and with just 3-4 days of practice she was up on court to test herself.

Losing the opening game 6-15, Saina came back strong with her signature smashes and body smash to win the following two games 15-13, 15-13 to get the job done for her team. Awadhe were leading 4-0 with two matches remaining.

This was followed by the men's singles contest between Kidambi Srikanth and Wang Tzu Wei. This too saw an epic three-game battle. North Eastern Warriors looked desperate to get a point on board. Wang got his team the first point on board with a gritty and dominating performance that led him to beat the Indian 10-15, 15-9, 15-6.

And then the Guwahati based team had a chance to cut down the difference between points as their last match was a trump and it could give two more points. The men's doubles duo of Kim Gi Jung/Shin Baek Cheol were determined to do so and they won their trump match in straight games 15-10, 15-12 to defeat Hendra Setiawan/Tang Chun Man to give their team more points.

But in the end, the damage was already done as Awadhe won the tie 4-3.

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