India’s mixed doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, on Sunday, lost their semi-final against England’s Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith in the Dutch Open at Almere. The Indian pair lost 14-21, 18-21 to their eighth seeded opponents. The match lasted 37 minutes.
Ponnappa and Satwik entered the last four with a straight game win over their opponents Scott Evans (Ireland) and Amanda Hogstorm (Sweden) in the quarter-final. Ponnappa and Satwik have been in good form throughout the tournament, where they entered as qualifiers and it showed in their win against the Irish-Swedish pair as they took just 32 minutes to wrap up the quarter-final encounter 21-18, 21-14.
The recently formed pair to overcame the seventh-seeded Dutch pairing of Robin Tabeling and Cheryl Seinen 21-15, 20-22, 21-6 to enter the quarters.