Syed Modi International: Sameer Verma retains title, Saina Nehwal stunned in final

Sameer Verma is on fire #badminton #HSBCBWFbadminton pic.twitter.com/Ljt3zRJA1L

— BWF (@bwfmedia) 25 November 2018

Sameer came from a game down to beat the sixth-seeded Chinese shuttler 16-21, 21-19, 21-14 in 70 minutes. With the win, Sameer has displaced Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto at No.8 in the Race to Guangzhou Rankings and sealed his spot in the BWF World Tour Finals.

The 24-year old started the final well, leading 8-4 in the first game. However, he squandered momentum after that to trail 8-11 going into the break. Lu won 14 out of 18 points to take his lead to 18-12 before winning the game.

Sameer found his groove in the second game, going into the mid-game break with a lead of three points but Lu did well to make a comeback and level the game 16-16. It became a close contest after that before the world number 16 Sameer took the match into title-decider.

The start of the decider was a close contest with Sameer, who won titles at Swiss and Hyderabad this year, going into the break with a lead of just a point. It was the Indian shuttler’s game after the break as he won the match by seven points in the decider.

Meanwhile, former champion and second-seeded Saina Nehwal lost in straight games to Han, who is 19 years old and ranked 27th in the world in a 34-minute final. The Commonwealth Games gold-medallist went down 18-21 8-21 to end up as runners-up of the tournament.

Commonwealth Games silver medallists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also went down in straight games against second seeds Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia to settle for the runners-up prize in the men’s doubles competition.

Ashwini Ponnappa-Sikki Reddy also finished runners up after losing 15-21,12-21 to Chow Mei Kuan-Lee Meng Yean in the women’s doubles final.