IBL – First win for Pune

The Indian Badminton League kicked off last night in style at the Siri Fort Sports Complex in New Delhi with a win from Pune’s Pistons over New Delhi’s “Krrish Delhi Smashers” in spite of a good win from Praneeth over Nguyen Tien Minh, a recent bronze medallist at the world Championships. A first good win for Pune. Here are the results of the match, won 3/2 by Pune.

Men’s singles: B Sai Praneeth (Delhi) beats Nguyen Tien Minh (Pune) 21-16 21-20.

Women’s singles: Juliane Schenk (Pune) beats Jindapon (Delhi) 21-15, 21-6

Men’s doubles: Tan Boon Hoeng /Koo Kien Keat  (Delhi) beat Rupesh Kumar/Sanave Thomas (Pune) 21-13 21-16

Men’s singles: Sourabh Varma (Pune) beat HS Prannoy (Delhi) 21-16 19-21 11-5.

Mixed Doubles: Ashwini Ponappa/Joachim Fischer Nielsen (Pune) beat Jwala Gutta/Koo Kien Keat (Delhi) Keat 21-19 16-21 11-3

THE TEAMS (Source Indian Business Time)

Banga Beats: Parupalli Kashyap (c) (India), Hu Yun (Hong Kong), Carsten Mogensen (Denmark), Akshay Dewalkar (India), Tai Tzu-ying (Chinese Taipei), Aparna Balan (India), Carolina Marin (Spain), Arvind Bhat (India), Aditya Prakash (India), J. Meghana (India), Daniel Farid (India)

Hyderabad Hotshots: Saina Nehwal (c) (India), Pradnya Gadre (India), Tarun Kona (India), Ajay Jayaram (India), Taufik Hidayat (Indonesia), Tanongsak (Thailand), Goh V Shem (Malaysia), Lim Khim Wah (Malaysia), Kanthi Visalakshi P (India), Shubhankar Dey (India), C. Rahul Yadav (India)

Krrish Delhi Smashers:  Jwala Gutta (c) (India), Wong Wing Ki (Hong Kong), H. S. Prannoy (India), Sai Praneeth (India), Arundhati Pantawane (India), Boon Heong Tan (Malaysia), Kien Keat Koo (Malaysia), V. Diju (India), Nichaon Jindapon (Thailand), Prajakta Sawant (India)

Mumbai Masters: Lee Chong Wei (c) (Malaysia), Pranav Chopra (India), Tine Baun (Denmark), Marc Zwiebler (Germany), Vladimir Ivanov (Russia), Siki Reddy (India), Manu Attri (India), P. C. Thulasi (India), Sumeet Reddy (India), Rasika Raje (India), Harsheel Dani (India)

Pune Pistons: Ashwini Ponnappa (c) (India), Nguyen Tien Minh (Vietnam), Saurabh Verma (India), Anup Sridhar (India), Juliane Schenk (Germany), Joachiam Fischer Nielsen (India), Sanave Thomas (India), Arun Vishnu (India), Tan Wee Kiong (Malaysia), Rupesh Kumar (India)

Awadhe Warriors:  PV Sindhu (c) (India), Gurusai Dutt (India), K. Srikanth (India), Ruthvika Shivani (India), K. Maneesha (India), Nanda Gopal (India), Maneepong Jongjit (Thailand), Vinay Singh (India), Sapsiree Taerattanachai (Thailand), Markis Kido (Indonesia), Chong Wei Feng (Malaysia)

THE RULES (source NDTV)

The standard two-point gap to win a game has been abandoned in favour of a race to 21 points for the first two games and 11 points for the decider, if needed. There will also be a minute’s commercial break after the seventh and 14th points in the first two games and after the sixth point in the decider.

Each team, comprising four foreign players, six Indians and one upcoming Indian junior, will play on a home-and-away basis in the preliminary league, with the top four qualifying for the semi-finals.

All ties, including the August 31 final in Mumbai, will have five matches — two men’s singles, and one each in women’s singles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles.