Vladivostock (Russia), July 28: Former national champion Sourabh Verma continued his impressive run as he outclassed compatriot Mithun Manjunath in straight games to storm into the final of the USD 75,000 Russia Open badminton tournament here Saturday.
Also, young mixed doubles pair of Kuhoo Garg and Rohan Kapoor made it to the summit clash defeating Malaysian combination of Chen Tang Jie and Yen Wei Peck in a three-game thriller.
The 25-year-old Sourabh, who is on a comeback trail after recovering from injuries defeated Mithun 21-9, 21-15 in just 31 minutes to set up a title clash with Japan’s Koki Watanabe Sunday.
Sourabh, who had won the Chinese Taipei Masters and finished runner-up at Bitburger Open in 2016, made a rampaging start as he zoomed to a 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, eighth seed Sourabh soon turned the tables to move to 14-13. However, he reeled off five straight points to zoom to 19-13 at one point to eventually pocket the match.
Meanwhile, the second seed Indian combo of Kuhoo and Rohan overcame a mid-set malfunction to eventually notch up a 21-19, 11-21, 22-20 win over an unseeded Malaysian pair in a game which took 58 minutes. They will face Vladimir Ivanov of Russia and Min Kyung Kim of Korea in the final.
Both pairs fought for each point in the first game before Rohan and Kuhoo held their nerves to win the first set. However, the Malaysian pair bounced back strongly to dominate and win the second set to force the match into the decider. In the final set it was all about mental play and nerves as the Indian pair kept their cool to win third set and the match.
However, the men’s doubles pair of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla, couldn’t cross the semifinal hurdle losing 15-21, 19-21 to second seeded local combo of Konstantin Abramov and Alexandr Zinchenko.
