HYDERABAD: Top seeds Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar of India bagged their maiden Grand Prix men’s doubles title when they downed fourth seed Japanese duo of Hirokatsu Hashimoto and Noriyasu Hirata 21-16, 15-21,21-13 in a 53-minute battle in the New Zealand Open badminton tournament in Auckland on Saturday.
It was the second successive final for the Indian doubles team. They had lost to Malaysian Teik Chai Gan and Bin Shen Tan 13-21, 11-21 in the Australian Open Grand Prix championship final in Melbourne before being second time lucky. These two creditable performances comes a few days ahead of the World Championship that will be held at Hyderabad from August 10 to 16.
After winning the first game easily, the Indian pair ran into trouble in the second and lost it. However, in the deciding third game both Sanave and Rupesh looked in tremendous form as they took stranglehold of the match by taking a huge lead at the start before they closed the match in style.
Chief national coach Pullela Gopi Chand hailed the victory saying that the title win would be the right type of encouragement before the World Championship. “Sanave and Rupesh have been combining well. They have been playing some quality badminton in the last few years. They are a much improved combination. It is good for Indian badminton,” he said.
Sanave and Rupesh have been India’s top doubles combination ever since Indonesian coach Hadi Sugianto had formed this pair a few years ago when he was the doubles coach for the Indian team. According to U Vimal Kumar, the former chief national coach, it was on the suggestion of Sugianto that Sanave and Rupesh came together as a pair. “I remember Sugianto and Uday Pawar, who looked after the doubles camp, asking Sanave and Rupesh to play together as they thought this combination would give better results,” recalls Vimal Kumar.
Sanave was V Diju’s doubles partner while Rupesh paired with Markos Bristow. Diju is now one of the world top mixed doubles player with Jwala Gutta.
Within a few years, Sanave and Rupesh made tremendous progress. But it was the lack of the good doubles sparring partners in the national circuit hampered their progress.
“They began to produce results once they began to take part in international circuit,” said Vimal Kumar.
According to Vimal Kumar, during one of the Indian team’s camp in Indonesia, the famous doubles player Christian Hadinata was highly impressed with Sanave and Rupesh. “Hadinata had predicted that Sanave and Rupesh would be a good doubles,” said Vimal.” Diju feels both Sanave and Rupesh have impressed with their game.
