The Verma brothers -- Sourabh and Sameer -- continued their rampaging run at the Bitburger Open, notching up contrasting wins to advance to the semifinals of the $120,000 Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament here
Sourabh Verma and Sameer Verma
Saarbrucken (Germany): The Verma brothers -- Sourabh and Sameer -- continued their rampaging run at the Bitburger Open, notching up contrasting wins to advance to the semifinals of the $120,000 Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament here.
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The 23-year-old Sourabh stunned World No. 13 German Marc Zwiebler, seeded third, 21-15, 16-21, 21-15 in a men’s singles match that lasted 51 minutes. The Chinese Taipei Open champion Indian will next take on 15th seed Anders Antonsen of Denmark.
His younger brother Sameer, seeded 12th, also disposed off Ukraine’s Artem Pochtarov 21-14, 21-16 in another quarter-final match. The senior national champion will face fourth seeded Chinese Shi Yuqi next.
Sourabh, who reached the finals in his last three tournaments in Belgium, Poland and Chinese Taipei, is just one step away from yet another summit clash after he dished out a gritty performance against the experienced Marc.
It was a tooth and nail battle as both Sourabh and Marc moved together right from the start till 7-7 when the Indian opened up a slender 9-7 lead. The German soon caught up but Sourabh broke off at 12-12 and went on to pocket the opening game. Sourabh was leading 13-9 in the second set before blowing it up. In the decider, Sourabh was again 9-3 ahead but Marc clawed his way back to 14-14. But this time the Indian surged ahead and grabbed the game to seal his semi-final spot.
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