C’WEALTH GAMES R16 – More than a win for S Africa

India’s seeded players started slowly in the evening session, but Gutta / Ponnappa and Kidambi fought back hard to progress. For some however, a good performance here means all for the future, as the South African pair of Fry / le Grange look to secure funding.

By Michael Burke, Badzine Correspondent, live from Glasgow.  Photos: Yohan Nonotte for Badmintonphoto (live).

Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa (pictured left) fought back hard from losing the early game against Australian pair of Tang / Veeran to cruise through to the quarterfinal stage.

“I think we started off very slow, we were checking ourselves. There was more than a little pressure on us, as we cannot underestimate them.” Gutta commented.

Ponnappa added, “We haven’t had a lot of good matches, we’ve had a lot of breaks so it’s not helping our consistency.”

Srikkanth Kidambi similarly fought back after losing a tight first game.

“I know he plays well, not an easy player. I really felt the pressure on the crucial points, I just had to take a step back, and then I changed my tactics for the second and third games.” Kidambi said

Despite Niluka Karunaratne’s loss, Sri Lanka had success as Rathnasiri and Weerasinghe fought well in a three game battle with Kiwis Rankin and Stapleton.

Rathnasiri said, “It was very tough, we should have won the second game, but we had a lead and relaxed too much, made too many mistakes.”

Their coach corrected this looseness for the third, but regardless of the slip, the pair were happy. “This is one of the first times we have played together for a long time since we had a break for education.”

For South Africans Jennifer Fry and Sandra le Grange (pictured right), their hard fought victory against Beruwalage and Murukkuwadura was about more than just reaching the quarter finals.

“In the end the team who wanted it the most won, and we really need it.” Said Fry. “We need good performances to try to get South Africa to fund us.”

The pair live 500 km away from each other, and Fry said, “We don’t play together often. We need more tournaments and to train together. We need to improve our international grading to get funding, but we need funding to improve the grading so it’s a catch 22.”

The target for Fry and le Grange is most certainly Rio, and hopefully for them, a good performance at the Commonwealth Games will stand them in good stead for the future.

The matches peaked again towards the end of the session, as Peter Mills and Chris Langridge (pictured left) won a close game against Chan / Liew, but their compatriots Olver / Robertshaw weren’t able to equal the feat losing a tight one to Lim / Pei Jing.

Peter Mills spoke of the game against the scratch pair, “It was tough, and we didn’t know what to expect. They are both talented players, a very awkward combination.”

Chris Langridge went on about how they deal with the pressure, “You try not to think too much about the score, that’s when you get nervy. When it’s close, and you win, it’s the best thing in sport. We’ve got much better at working together in those situations.”

The full results for the day can be found here.