No doubting these Thomases

MUMBAI: The 32-man field in the men’s singles event of the BPL Asian Satellite Badminton Championships has been halved after two rounds of competition at the Bombay Gymkhana courts on Friday. Yet, it is certain that an Indian will figure in the title round on Sunday. So authoritative was their domination of the top half of the draw. And it was not the top ranked Abhin Shyam Gupta nor third seeded Nitin Kanetkar who came up with anything out of the ordinary.They came through to the quarter-finals, as expected, in a canter. Instead, it was Sanave Thomas and Thomas Kurien who pulled off, in similar fashion, stunning upsets to join their countrymen in the last eight stage of the tournament.
Sanave, who came via three rounds of qualifying and then cleared first hurdle of the main draw in Lanka’s Wanasinghe, upset fifth seed from Singapore, Hendra Wijaya in straight games.
Unseeded Kurien, who had to rally from the loss of the first game against England’s Nicholas Kidd in the morning session, returned to do an encore, this time coming from behind to show Malaysia’s seventh seed Krishnan Yogendran the exit. Kurien takes on Gupta while Sanave clashes with Kanetkar for the two semi-final slots in the top half of the draw. Joining them in the last eight was second seed Chetan Anand from the bottom half of the draw. Anand accounted for Singapore’s Kuo Wen Wayne in straight games.
It would be unfair to classify which of the two Thomases’ triumphs was the more qualitative. They both used much the same strategy __ that of wearing down their opponents by engaging them in long rallies in the hot and humid conditions and then finishing off with a flourish.
Men’s singles (2nd round): 1-Abhin Shyam Gupta (India) beat Joy Anthony (India) 15-3, 15-12; Thomas Kurien (India) beat 7-Krishanan Yogendran (Malaysia) 5-15, 15-3, 15-2; 3-Nikhil Kanetkar (India) beat Thirayu Laohathaimongkol (Thailand) 15-5, 15-9; Sanave Thomas (India) beat 5-Hendra Wijaya (Singapore) 17-14, 15-10; 4-Jarkrapan Thanathiratham (Thailand) beat Ravinder Singh (India) 15-5, 15-4; Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia) beat Siddharth Jain (India) 15-10, 15-5; Aamir Ghaffar (England) beat J B S Vidyadhar (India) 11-15, 15-6, 17-15; 2-Chetan Anand (India) beat Kuo Wen Wayne (Singapore) 15-4, 15-4.
Ladies singles (1st round): Aparna Popat (India) beat CH Deepti (India) 11-0, 13-12; Saratja Chansrisukot (Thailand) beat Fatima Nazneen (India) 11-1, 11-7; Woon Sze Mei (Malaysia) beat Krishna Dekaraja (India) 11-2, 11-6; B.R. Meenakshi (India) beat Krupa Telang (India) 11-5, 11-3; Trupti Murgunde (India) beat Palkan Nagori (India) 13-11, 11-1; Lee Yin Yin (Malaysia) beat K. Neelima Chawdry (India) 11-0, 11-5; Manjusha Kanwar (India) beat Jwala Gutta (India) 8-11, 11-7, 11-5; Salakjit Polsana (Thailand) beat Pooja Patil (India) 11-2, 11-2.