HS Prannoy clinches US Open title

TIL Desk Sports/ HS Prannoy notched up a thrilling three-game win over Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap in an all-Indian final to clinch the USD 120,000 US Open Grand Prix Gold here.

Prannoy, who lost a fair amount of his time to nagging injuries in his career, dished out a gritty performance to defeat Kashyap 21-15 20-22 21-12 in the summit clash which lasted an hour and five minutes.

“It was a good match, pretty intense match, a high quality match by both me and Kashyap. I think after losing the second game narrowly, I was calm and patient enough and it worked for me,” Prannoy told.

“In second game, Kashyap was playing better than the first game. He was putting a lot of pressure on net and he was also finishing the lifts that I was producing, that made the whole difference.

“But in the third game, I changed my strategy a bit and I had a good lead. So yeah, overall happy with the tournament. Now I am looking forward to New Zealand Open,” he added.