(UTV|COLOMBO) – Sri Lankan women’s double pair Thilini Hendahewa and Kavidi Sirimannage made superb fighting effort to beat Switzerland pair Celine Burklet and Sabrina Jaquet with three hard fought setter which paved the way to beat higher rank Switzerland with 3-2 at the Sudirman Cup Badminton Tournament played at Guangxi Sports Centre, Nanning, China yesterday.
With this fighting game Sri Lanka finished the top of the Group 3B and qualify for the classification round tomorrow. In fact this victory is more important as Switzerland is rank 22 in this tournament while Sri Lanka two places behind with rank 24.
Sri Lanka beat Slovakia and Lithuania earlier with out much effort but yesterday they had to make fighting effort to beat Switzerland.
Before this women’s double game both Sri Lanka and Switzerland were tied with 2 all, Sri Lanka won the men’s single and men’s double but lost women’s single and women’s double.
The deciding women’s double game Hendahewa and Sirimannage lost their first game 21/16 but they used their full effort to win second and third sets 22-20 and 22-20 to came on top of their Group.
Earlier Dinuka Karuspnaratna the experienced campaigner of the Sri Lanka team got an early lead with winning the men’s single game against Christian Kirchmayr 21/16, 21/14. However Sachin Dias and Thilini Hendahewa lost their mixed double game against Oliver Schaller and Celine Burklet after two fighting sets 21/18, 21/18 to equal the game.
Sri Lanka team changed their women’s single player Dilmi Dias to replace Kavidi Sirimannage considering her experience for this game. This match was very vital for both teams to get lead . However Switzerland player Sabrina Jaquet made hard fought first set to beat Sirimannage 21/15 and she was keen to outclass Sirimannge 21/10 to win the game. In the third men’s double match Sri Lankan pair Sachin Dias and Buwaneka Gunatilleka lost the first set 20/22 after close battle over Tobias Kuenzi and Oliver Schaller but Buwaneka and Sachin made good come back to win second and third set 21/8 and 21/15 to finish the game in their favour.
At the classification round Sri Lanka will meet Ireland on tomorrow 24th while Switzerland will meet Australia. (DN)
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