Indian shuttler Sourabh Verma clinches Hyderabad Open title

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Ace Indian shuttler Sourabh Verma produced a spirited performance to beat Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in a three-game thriller and lift the men’s singles title at the Hyderabad Open BWF Tour Super 100 Badminton Tournament on Monday. 

After comfortably winning the opening game, the seventh seed Indian failed to capitalise on the same and went down in the second before he rebounded strongly to clinch a 21-13, 14-21, 21-16 triumph against Kean Yew in the summit showdown of the tournament that lasted 52 minutes. 

Sourabh had ealier booked his place in the final of the Hyderabad Open with a straight-game 23-21, 21-16 victory over Malaysia's Iskandar Zulkarnain in a 48-minute semi-final match. 

With the win, the 26-year-old from Madhya Pradesh won his second men's singles title of the year after winning this year's Slovenia International in May. He had also won two Super 100 titles at the Dutch Open and Russian Open in 2018. 

However, the Indian pair of Ashwini Ponappa and N. Sikki Reddy suffered a major blow as they slumped to a straight game defeat at the hands of the Korean team of Baek Ha Na and Jung Kyung Eun to make a runner-up finish in the women's doubles event of the Hyderabad Open. 

Ponappa and Reddy failed to continue their good run in the tournament, slumping to a 17-21, 17-21 defeat against the Korean duo in the final clash that lasted 43 minutes to settle for silver.