Defending Champion India faces Thailand in their Thomas Cup Opener.
While the Thomas Cup is the world badminton team championship for men, the Uber Cup is the women’s version. Both championships are held simultaneously biannually.
World No.1 Kidambi Srikanth set his date with World No.7 Lee Chong Wei in the summit clash of badminton men’s singles competition at the 21st Commonwealth Games after registering comfortable wins in their respective semi-finals here on Saturday.
While Srikanth registered an easy 21-10, 21-17 straight games victory over England’s Rajiv Ouseph, Malaysia’s Lee Chong overcame World No.11 Indian H.S. Prannoy 21-16, 9-21, 21-14 in their respective semi-final matches.
Srikanth lived upto his billing as the top seed, comfortably pocketing the first game in mere 12 minutes.
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The Indian breezed away with a 11-8 lead midway into the second game.
After the breather, Rajiv somewhat managed to pull things back but the Indian was in no mood to take the match to the decider and brought his A game into play to close the contest within 19 minutes.
In the other semi-final, Lee Chong sailed through the first game, easily pocketing it in 23 minutes. But the Indian walked into the second game with a 9-3 lead before extending it further to 14-5.
Prannoy did not allow the Malaysian to bounce back and closed the game in mere 16 minutes to square things off.
In the decider, Lee Chong found his groove back to take a 11-6 lead at the break but Prannoy managed to get back with four straight points to cut the deficit to 10-13.
But from there, the Malaysian left no room for the Indian, getting three points on the trot to lead 16-10 and used his wealth of experience to pocket the contest 21-14 in 19 minutes.
Prannoy will now play Rajiv for the bronze medal, later on Saturday.
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