The Indian badminton women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto went down fighting 14-21, 21-17, 15-21 against Japan’s Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi in the women’s doubles final at the Syed Modi International in Lucknow on Sunday.
Ponnappa-Castro started the match strongly but after being level 12-12, the Japanese pair carried forward the momentum to win the first game 21-14.
The Indian duo bounced back in the second game to take a 11-9 lead at the interval. Ponnappa and Castro then carried forward the momentum to win the second game 21-17 and force a decider.
In the decider, the Indians were down six points and the Japanese held on to their nerves to take a 11-8 lead in the interval. Eventually, it was the Japanese who prevailed to win the game 21-15.
Ponnappa-Castro, who finished with silver in Lucknow, are the only Indian women’s doubles pair this year to reach two finals in BWF World Tour as they also emerged victorious at the Abu Dhabi Masters 2023 in October.
Earlier in the tournament, the seventh-seeded Indian pair reached the final after their opponents and top seeds Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota retired mid-way from the match with an injury.
Ponnappa and Crasto were trailing 10-11 when Hirota slipped and fell on the court, injuring her left knee. The Japanese player was later carried to the sidelines and attended to by a physio before the pair decided to withdraw from the contest.
Meanwhile, the other results included Chinese Taipei’s Chi Yu Jen defeating Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto 20-22, 21-12 and 21-17 in the men’s singles final.
Indonesian mixed doubles pair Dejan Ferdinansyah/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja defeated the Japanese pair of Yuki Kaneko/Matsutomo 22-20, 19-21 and 23-25 in a closely contested match that lasted 1 hour 35 minutes.
In the men’s doubles final, Indonesian pair Choong Hon Jian/Muhammad Haikal defeated Japan’s Akira Koga/Taichi Saito 21-18, 18-21, 16-21.
Former World No 1 Nozomi Okuhara defeated Denmark’s Line Hojmark Kjaersfeldt 21-19, 21-16 to win the women’s singles title, in what was the only match of the day that was confined to two games.
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