Text & Visuals: Rajeev Bhatt
New Delhi, Jan 15: Malvika Bansod and Priyanshu Rajawat put their best foot forward by putting their much higher ranked opponents to the sword but were unfortunate to end on the wrong side of the score-line in the opening round of the Yonex-Sunrise India Open 2025 at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall here on Wednesday.
It was the heart-breaking losses of the young guns, Malvika and Rajawat, that left the home badminton fans speechless as both of them played their hearts out. Malvika saved two game points in the opening game and fought back from 7-14 to 16-16 in the second against women’s singles third seed Han Yue of China before going down 20-22, 21-16, 21-11 in an hour and six minutes.
Malvika, who had gone down in straight game against Han last week in Malaysia, started strong in the opening game and though the Chinese took control of the game in the later stage, kept her nerves and forced errors to save two game points and pocket the first game. It looked like she could do an encore in the second after winning eight the nine points from 7-14 but a couple of errors derailed her effort and the experienced Han tightened the noose in the decider.
In the men’s singles match, Rajawat saved a match point in the second game to force a decider against the 2023 world championships silver medallist and sixth seed Kodai Naraoka but could not avoid a 21-16, 22-20, 21-13 loss in a match that lasted an hour and 22 minutes in the HSBC BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament.
Rajawat displayed delectable stroke play and employed the big jump smashes to keep pace with Naroaka. The Japanese was made to work hard for every point and the error the Indian forced the sixth seed to commit at match point in the second game after a long rally showed that he was prepared for the scrap. But once again it was experience of Naraoka that counted in the final analysis.