Korea Open: Parupalli Kashyap ups the ante

India’s Parupalli Kashyap is on a good court this week. He is the only Indian to advance from the first round of the Korea Open BWF Tour Super 500 tournament in Incheon when all his compatriots including PV Sindhu and his wife Saina Nehwal exited in the first round.

On Friday, Kashyap defeated Denmark’s former world No. 2 Jan O Jorgensen 24-22 21-8 in the quarterfinal match that lasted just 37 minutes. Kashyap became only the third Indian shuttler, and second male, to enter the semifinals of the Korea Open, which was earlier Superseries before BWF events were restructured.

Kashyap is on course to emulate Ajay Jayaram’s entry into the Korea Open final in 2015. The only other Indian to go the farthest in this tournament is current women’s singles world champion Sindhu, who won the title in 2017 but bowed out in the first round this year.

Kashyap, though, will find the going tough as he will face world No. 1 Kento Momota of Japan in Saturday’s semifinal.

What makes Kashyap’s entry into the semifinal more significant is that he was promoted from qualifiers (PFQ) and given direct entry after India’s current world No. 10 Kidambi Srikanth withdrew from the tournament due to knee injury.

Though, Kashyap is not the first such PFQ to enter a Superseries semifinal. His own withdrawal from Indonesia Open in June allowed Hong Kong’s Wing Ki Wong to be promoted from reserves (PFR) and reach semifinals before losing to Danish Anders Antonsen.

In his last-eight match against former European champion and 2015 World Championships bronze medallist Jorgensen, Kashyap was in total control.

The first game was closely fought and Kashyap trailed at the half-way mark 8-11 as the Danish world No. 23 smashed regularly to the 30th-ranked Indian’s wrong side. However, there was no reason to panic for Kashyap as he was in control of the shuttle, winning more points at the net while also coming up the occasional jump smashes to yield maximum results.

Kashyap kept his nerves in tact even as he made the odd mistake of hitting wide or was unable to retrieve Jorgensen’s smashes. He was down game point twice but ensured Jorgensen did not take the advantage with a jump smash to level at 20-20 and stretch the game.

The 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist was also on game point once at 20-19 before Jorgensen won two consecutive points to serve for the game. However, Kashyap sealed the game in 22 minutes when Jorgensen hit straight to the net.

In the second, Kashyap walked away with the lead after the two exchanged services early on to be 3-3. From then, Kashyap widened the gap with his effective net play and smashes that Jorgensen could not respond properly.

Kashyap minimised his mistakes and did not allow any long rally whatsoever and kept the Denmark shuttler under check. On the other hand, Jorgensen’s unforced errors kept pulling him back.

“Excellent win,” Kashyap told DNA soon after his win over Jorgensen. “He beat good players to reach the quarterfinals, especially eighth-seeded Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia in the previous round,” said the Indian.

He admitted to being nervous against Jorgensen but trusted his preparation and inputs from his coach, Korea’s Park Tae-sang. “The conditions also suited his style of play. So, I was nervous about it. But my preparation was good. Coach Park’s and Gopi (Pullela Gopichand) sir’s inputs were helpful. And, I did my own homework too as to how to play Jorgensen. My movements were good and I controlled the shuttle well.”

Kashyap may have had the slight advantage over the tired Danish shuttler. In the latter’s run up to the quarterfinal, Jorgensen played two back-to-back three-game winners against Yu Xiang Huang of China in the first round and Ginting in the second.

On the other hand, Kashyap played a straight-game first-round win over qualifier Lu Chia Hung of Chinese Taipei and a near-hour three-game pre-quarterfinal against Malaysian Daren Liew on Thursday. Also, Kashyap had a couple of hours extra rest than Jorgensen after their second-round matches.

Kashyap is looking ahead with confidence his semifinal against Momota, who has won five BWF Tour titles this year including the All England and last week’s China Open besides the World Championships and Asian Championships gold. He has nothing to lose against the formidable left-handed Japanese. Kashyap has lost on both the previous occasions the two came face to face, the last time being the Indonesia Open in June 2015.

Kashyap can take comfort from the fact that his previous two opponents Daren Liew and Jorgensen either were ahead or on even terms head-to-head before this tournament, and the last time he faced them before this week was long ago, in 2014.

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