PSA Challenger Tour: It’s repeat of Chennai show at Noida leg on Tuesday
September 7, 2021
Familiar foes will meet again in the final of the HCL-SRFI Indian tour-Noida leg, a PSA Challenger Tour event, at the Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida on Tuesday.
Top seeds Sunayna Kuruvilla of Chennai and Tanvi Khanna of Delhi will extend their rivalry for the second straight final in the women’s category while Chennai’s Velavan Senthilkumar, No. 3 and Mumbai’s Abhishek Pradhan, No.4, will clash again in men’s category.
In the Chennai leg which concluded 10 days ago, Tanvi and Velavan were the winners.
On Monday in the semifinals, Sunayana was two up and neck and neck in the third before Jindal Academy trainee Urwashi prevailed and went on to win the third and pocketed the fourth too. In the decider too leads changed till the last before Urwashi committed couple of enforced error and Sunayana won a stroke to win 11-9, 11-9, 11-13, 7-11, 11-8 after 36 minutes of engrossing battle.For Chennai girl, 22, this is her second straight final and the fifth final since he turned pro in 2017. Meanwhile, Tanvi who met a young rival in Anjali Semwal faced little resistance winning at 11-8, 11-5, 11-5 in 21 minutes to book her second final place.
In the men’s semifinal, sixth seeded Rahul Baitha with an upset win over second seeded Aadit Zaveri under his belt, tried his best to push Velavan and the Jindal trainee managed to an extent but that was for a brief time. Soon Velavan found his rival’s game plan and demolished it in no time to win 11-4, 11-8, 11-8 in half an hour.
In the second semis between friends Abhishek Agarwal and Abhishek Pradhan of Mumbai who are also training partners and known to each other since their junior days, it was Prdahan who had the last laugh 11-7, 9-11, 11-4, 10-12, 11-5 at the end of 58 minutes pitched battle.
“I’m feeling good after winning a tough match. And defeating a friend is also another feeling. We know each other’s game very well and one with minimum error carried the day,” Pradhan said and added that he has learnt a lot from the defeat at the hands of Vela in the Chennai final. “Lots of lessons learnt from that final match. I will try to put that in place to good effect. Let’s see. I hope it will be another day,” said the 28-year-old Mumbaikar.
FINALS (from 11am)
WOMEN: 1-Sunayna Kuruvilla of Chennai vs 2-Tanvi Khanna of Delhi; MEN: 4-Abhishek Pradhan of Mumbai vs 3-Velavan Senthilkumar of Chennai.
Semifinal results
Women: 2-Tanvi Khanna bt Anjali Semwal of Mumbai 11-8, 11-5, 11-5 (21m); 1-Sunayna Kuruvilla bt 3-Urwashi Joshi of Mumbai 11-9, 11-9, 11-13, 7-11, 11-8
Men: 3-Velavan Senthilkumar bt 6-Rahul Baitha of Mumbai 11-4, 11-8, 11-8 (32m); 4-Abhishek Pradhan bt 1- Abhishek Agarwal 11-7, 9-11, 11-4, 10-12, 11-5.
