India’s men’s singles shuttler Kiran George and women’s doubles pairing of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto registered impressive wins against higher-ranked opponents in the opening round of the Arctic Open Super 500 event in Vantaa, Finland on Wednesday.
Ponnappa and Crasto, the veteran-youngster pairing who only started playing on tour at the start of this year, produced a superb performance against world No 13 Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto in straight games 22-20, 21-19. Miyaura and Sakuramoto had a sizeable lead in the opening game, but the Indians fought back from 11-17 down to take the lead. Crasto and Ponnappa, ranked No 39 in the world now, produced a couple of stunning rallies late in the game.
The second game was tight throughout but the Indians sneaked from 17-18 to clinch their biggest match win yet. The previous highest-ranked pair they had defeated was the world No 21. The duo had won the Nantes International Challenge 2023 title this year.
#Badminton #ArcticOpenSuper500
Super, super win for Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto as they defeat world No 13 Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto in straight games! 22-20, 21-19.
Terrific finish in both games. pic.twitter.com/pxNt4Hp4Fa
— Vinayakk (@vinayakkm) October 11, 2023
Also registering a solid win was George, who got past world No 26 Toma Junior Popov in three games. The Indian, ranked world No 42, won 24-22 15-21 21-15 in a match that lasted 73 minutes.
Also progressing was Srikanth Kidambi, who got a walkover mid-way through the opening game from Germany’s Max Weisskirchen.
On Tuesday, PV Sindhu and Aakarshi Kashyap had won their first-round matches too.
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