There was no joy for Europe at the Syed Modi International with no Europeans making it to the final’s day in India.
The BWF World Tour Super 300 competition was dominated by Asian players, but there were some good performances from the few European players that travelled to Lucknow.
Boe and Morgensen bow out in epic
The Danish pair, Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen, lost their semi-final match against Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty from India in two close games.
The Danes fought back from 10-4 down in the opening game, but narrowly missed out, losing 22-20. The number five seeds then missed out in a back and forth second game, losing in a tie-break 27-25.
However, Boe did not seem too disappointed with the defeat, joking on Instagram:
- We did not win the match, but my moustache won the hearts of millions, he said.
Rampant Russians bow out in semi-finals
The two Russian pairs of Vladamir Ivanov/Ivan Sozonov and Ekaterina Bolotova/Alina Davletova produced a strong showing by reaching the semi-finals in Lucknow.
In the Men’s Doubles, Ivanov and Sosonov fought valiantly, but lost inevitably in straight games to the champions, Fajar Alfian and Muhammed Rian Ardianto from Indonesia.
The Europeans started the game off strongly, marching into an 8-4 lead in the opening game, but the quality of the number two seeds came through, they took the opening game 14-21.
The second game was much tighter with both pairs putting on a spectacle for the crowd, but the Russians fell just short, 25-27, after a tie-break.
Bolotova and Davletova were not too disappointed despite their semi-final defeat to the Indian pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Reddy N. Sikki in the Women’s Doubles category.
The number seven seeds gained some vital experience and a number of points, which should push them up the world rankings.
- Of course, we wanted to go as far as we could, but it is not been a bad tournament for us and we are confident of going further next time, they said.
See all the results from the competition here