CWG 2022: Sreeja Akula suffers heartbreaking loss, misses bronze by whisker

India’s Sreeja Akula suffered a heartbreaking loss on the Commonwealth Games as she went all the way down to Australia’s Yangzi Liu 3-4 in a detailed bronze medal play-off.

Sreeja went down 11-3 6-11 2-11 11-7 13-15 11-9 7-11 after staging a slew of comebacks in a match that lasted multiple and a half hour.The Hyderabad-born paddler made a assured begin in opposition to Liu who appeared fairly nervous and the previous took benefit of that to race to a 11-3 win the primary recreation.

The Australian bounced again with a extra attacking intent and clinched the second recreation 11-6 to attract stage.Buoyed by her comeback within the second recreation, Liu continued from the place she left off and didn’t permit the Indian to seek out any rhythm, and received the third recreation 11-2.
Sreeja, nonetheless, displayed the primary indicators of her never-say-die perspective and relied on her sensible forehand performs to win the fourth recreation 11-7.With the match all set at 2-2, it was Liu as soon as once more, who went forward with a decent recreation and made it 15-13 within the fifth recreation.

The sixth recreation turned out to be a battle of wits between the 2 gamers but it surely was Sreeja, who confirmed her class by successful 11-9, after trailing 1-7 at one level.The deciding set turned out to be one thing related as Sreeja, regardless of trailing 1-6, made it 5-8.

But it was the Australian who had the final snicker and walked away with the bronze. In the lads’s occasions, the pair of Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan will face the English duo of Paul Drinkhall and Liam Pitchford within the doubles gold medal match.In the singles occasions, Sharath will tackle Drinkall within the first semifinal later tonight whereas Sathiyan will cross swords with Pitchford within the second semifinal conflict.

On the opposite hand, the combined doubles gold medal match will see Sharath pairing up with Sreeja to sq. up in opposition to Malaysian pair of