Bangkok: India's Sameer Verma was on Friday knocked out of the Thailand Open in the quarter-finals, losing 13-21, 21-19, 22-20 to third seed Anders Antonsen of Denmark in a see-saw match that lasted an hour and 21 minutes.
Antonsen dominated the first game, registering an easy 21-13 win.
However, in the second game, the Indian raced to an 11-9 lead at the mid-game break. Antonsen then came back strongly and took a two-point lead at 16-14. But Verma didn't give up and made a stunning comeback to win the game 21-19 and take the match into the decider.
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HIGHLIGHTS | Unseeded Verma 🇮🇳 brings his A-game to rival third seed Antonsen 🇩🇰 🏸#HSBCbadminton #BWFWorldTour #ToyotaThailandOpen pic.twitter.com/EU2KJKdLEY
— BWF (@bwfmedia) January 22, 2021 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
">HIGHLIGHTS | Unseeded Verma 🇮🇳 brings his A-game to rival third seed Antonsen 🇩🇰 🏸#HSBCbadminton #BWFWorldTour #ToyotaThailandOpen pic.twitter.com/EU2KJKdLEY
— BWF (@bwfmedia) January 22, 2021HIGHLIGHTS | Unseeded Verma 🇮🇳 brings his A-game to rival third seed Antonsen 🇩🇰 🏸#HSBCbadminton #BWFWorldTour #ToyotaThailandOpen pic.twitter.com/EU2KJKdLEY
— BWF (@bwfmedia) January 22, 2021
In the third and final game, the Indian raced to an 11-8 lead at the mid-game break. But Antonsen used all his experience and eventually went on to win 22-20 in what turned out to be a nerve-wracking last-eight contest.
Earlier in the day, mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponappa entered the semi-finals after securing a hard-fought win over fifth seeds Peng Soon Chan and Liu Ying Goh of Malaysia.
The unseeded Indian pair registered an 18-21, 24-22, 22-20 win over their world number six opponents in a nail-biting quarter-final clash which lasted for an hour and 15 minutes.
Rankireddy and Ponappa will now face top seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand for a place in the summit clash.
Also Read: Thailand Open: Satwiksairaj, Ashwini storm into mixed doubles semi-final
