Praneeth Won Thailand Grand Prix Gold


A come from behind victory for the Indian shuttler B Sai Praneeth, he has won Thailand Grand Prix Gold title by winning in a fashionable way he defeated the Indonesian Jonathan Christie in the men’s singles final of the USD 1,20,000 Thailand Open in Bangkok on Sunday.

This was the second consecutive title win for Praneeth, following the Singapore Open victory. Though he came back from a disappoint loss to Sameer Verma on the finals of Syed Modi International last January at Hyderabad. As of this writing, Praneeth, ranked 24 in the world and did not have the ideal start in the finals as we went down in the opening game.

The battle between the Indonesian and Praneeth is exciting in its own way, The Indonesian open up a 3-0 lead but Praneeth soon caught up with him at 4-4 apiece and it was a very close battle till 7-7 before Christie broke free to maintain a slender edge.

The Indonesian was leading 14-11 but Praneeth kept breathing down his neck and made it 14-14 with three straight points, then Christie found himself 18-17 up and quickly sealed off the opening game with three points on the trot.

In the second game, Praneeth made a brilliant comeback as he surged ahead 5-0 and then 9-3 but failed to maintain his huge lead as his opponent won six successive points to make it 9-9.
It was really a neck and neck battle until 15-15 before the Indian took a slight advantage at 17-15, Leading 17-16 Praneeth managed to bag three more points to move ahead 20-16 although he wasted a two game points, he eventually won it 21-18.

In the deciding game Christie then broke away at 2-2 to open up a 7-2 lead and then to 8-3. The indian slowly made his way up with five consecutive points to reduce the margin to 7-8 and then finally Praneeth caught fire and caught up with him at 9-9 and what followed was a keenly contested affair with none of the shuttlers sparing an inch to each other.

As it goes down to the line at 17-17 apiece, Praneeth then won two crucial points to take a 19-17 lead but only to concede the advantage.

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