Chetan found himself making mistakes all the time and in fact never led in the two games.
It could have done world of good had the match gone Chetan Anand’ way. The Indian, however, looked in disarray and far from his best as he went down tamely to Boonsak Ponsana in the men's singles final of the India Open Gold Grand Prix here on Sunday. The fifth-seeded Thai won 21-16, 21-12.
Hong Kong's Zhou Mi, the sixth seed, defeated China's Lu Lan (second seed) 21-14, 21-14 to win the women's singles title.
The partisan crowd at the Gachibowli Indoor stadium was filled with hope after seeing some impressive performances from Chetan in the tournament so far. But the way Chetan, the World No 71, capitulated in the title clash showed that he was not in the best of mental shapes.
Ponsana played a very clever game. He realised that if he let Chetan get a few points, the Indian would surge right ahead and the game would be out of his hands. Curbing that did the trick. Chetan found himself making mistakes all the time and in fact never led in the two games. The Indian is a powerful smasher. On the day, he did not get any chance really to go after Ponsana. Most of the points Chetan got were from the World No 12 player's errors.
It was difficult to say who had the upper hand till about 6-6 in the first game. But after that, Ponsana increased the pressure and Chetan gave in easily. The Indian earned a few points here and there but had he taken a few points on the trot, the match could have gone either way. There was none of that and Ponsana took the first game 21-16.
Making basic errors like serving into the net was surely not going to help at all. Having lost the first game, it looked like Chetan was low on confidence. He was giving his rival just what he would have liked. Not much running about but well-aimed smashes that Chetan could not do much about. The saga continued and the Indian lost in 31 minutes.
Perhaps the heat and humidity got to Ponsana, who began to throw up after the match and had to be taken away for medical help.
Earlier, the women's final was a rather dull contest. China's Lu Lan seemed to be in no mood to have a go at the title. It was quite surprising to see her going down so tamely. Lu took a 4-3 lead in the first game. It would not have been too difficult for Lu to go further ahead with the lead. The problem really was her inconsistency. Zhou took four straight points to take a 7-4 lead. From then, Lu drew close but could never get past her rival. The main reason for former All-England champion Zhou surging ahead was a string of unforced errors from her rival. The Hong Kong girl soon wrapped up the first game 21-14.
The Chinese was effective when she tried to play at the net. But Lu did not do that. Zhou thrived when she played an attacking game. Lu played into the hands of her rival when she began to give room for Zhou to finish rallies with powerful smashes. With no resistance from Lu, Zhou took the second game at 21-14 for the title.
Zhendong Guo and Zhongbo Xie (China) and Yu Chin Chien and Wen Hsing Cheng (Taipei) won the men's and women's doubles titles respectively.
The winners of the men's and women's singles titles received $9000, while the runners-up got $4200. The doubles pairs received the same amount.
