An Indian shuttler will stand atop the victory podium for the first time in the history of the US Open badminton tournament after second seed HS Prannoy and unseeded Parupalli Kashyap set up a men’s singles summit clash in the Grand Prix Gold level event in Anaheim, California, on Saturday.
However, it was curtains for 2015 US Open finallists Manu Atri and B Sumeeth Reddy as they failed to convert a match point before going down 21-12, 12-21, 22-20 against top seeds Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han of Chinese Taipei in the men’s doubles semi-final.
But there were no such hiccups in the men’s singles as Kashyap, chasing his first title since the 2015 India Open Grand Prix Gold crown at home, rallied superbly after losing the first game against Korea’s Kwang Hee Heo to win 15-21, 21-15, 21-16 in an hour and six minutes.
Having levelled the game scores, Kashyap seemed in the hurry to pocket the decider as he opened up a 14-9 lead but Kwang managed to reduce the deficit to just one point soon after. However, the 30-year-old Indian kept his nerves to once again grab four points in a row to end the Korean’s resistance.
His compatriot, Prannoy, had a relatively straight forward outing against the experienced Tien Minh Nguyen of Vietnam as he took just 40 minutes to win 21-14 21-19.
Having raced through the first game, Prannoy did need to dig deep in the second as Nguyen took the lead early and it looked like the experienced campaigner could take the tie into the decider when he opened up a 18-14 lead.
But Prannoy grabbed four consecutive points to level the scores and then pocketed the semi-final on the very first match point opportunity.
Both Kashyap and Prannoy have won a match each in their two previous meetings but haven’t played each other on the international circuit since the second round of the 2014 German Open.