Press Trust of India
Calgary, July 4: It was double bonanza for India at the Canada Open as B Sai Praneeth and Rio-bound men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy clinched twin crowns after winning their respective title clashes at the USD 55,000 Grand Prix badminton tournament here Sunday.
The 23-year-old Praneeth, seeded fourth, dished out a dominating game to defeat Korea’s Lee Hyun Il 21-12, 21-10 in the men’s singles final that lasted less than half an hour at the Markin MacPhail Centre here.
Top seed Manu and Sumeeth Reddy won their second international doubles crown defeating the local combo of Adrian Liu and Toby Ng 21-8, 21-14 in a one-sided final here.
Plagued by injuries and indifferent form, Praneeth has been making early exits from tournaments for quite a few years now. Of course, he had occasional bursts of brilliance from time to time like when he stunned 2008 All England Champion Muhammad Hafiz Hashim of Malaysia at Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold tournament in June, 2013 or ruining the farewell party of Indonesia’s Taufik Hidayat, a former World and Olympic champion in the same year.
In fact, at the All England Championships this year, Praneeth had defeated two-time Olympic silver medallist Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia in the first round. However, despite all these sparks of excellence, a title always eluded him.
But Sunday, all that changed as the Andhra Pradesh lad stood at the podium with his maiden Grand Prix crown in his hands.
World No. 37 Praneeth hardly broke any sweat against Lee, leading all throughout right from the start to end in both the games. The third seeded Korean couldn’t put up any fight against the Indian, who jumped to a 10-2 lead in the opening game and then kept increasing the lead to pocket it comfortably.
In the second game also, Praneeth surged to a 8-0 lead and then kept moving ahead to slam the door on the Korean.
Lee had defeated top seed Ajay Jayaram of India 21-9, 21-8 in the semifinals Saturday, while Praneeth had eked out a difficult 22-20, 19-21, 21-12 win over France’s Brice Leverdez.
World No. 23 Manu and Sumeeth also didn’t face much challenge from Adrian and Toby. The Indian duo broke off after 3-3 early on in the first game and didn’t look back, while in the second game, the local combo tried to put up a better show but they couldn’t break the resolve of the Indians, who kept their distance to cross the line comfortably.
