HYDERABAD: North Eastern Warriors will be locking horns against former runners-up Mumbai Rockets tomorrow. It has been a forgettable campaign for the Kashyap-led team so far and they would desperately look to turn around their fortunes in the new leg.
The Rockets are still looking for their first win in four ties and the challenge won’t be any easy with the North Eastern Warriors being their opponents. World No. 18 Lee Cheuk Yiu is the trump card for the Guwahati-based team. The 2020 Indonesia Masters semi-finalist has seamlessly carried on his sterling form from the BWF World Tour to the PBL.
“Happy to have continued my good start to the year at the PBL and contributed wins for the team. We are all focussed on getting a win against the Rockets,” said Lee. World No. 10 Michelle Li is another player the North Eastern Warriors will bank on to help them in their title aspirations.
Meanwhile, in the other game here tomorrow Chennai Superstarz taking on the third-placed Pune 7.
What makes the clash a highly entertaining one is how robust both the teams have looked so far. With the Chennai team remaining unbeaten in three ties and Pune in two, one will taste its first defeat in the fifth edition of the world’s most popular badminton league.
The biggest attraction of this tie is the possible face-off between Chennai’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Pune’s Chirag Shetty, who partnered each other to a historic Thailand Open win last year. Having known each other’s games inside out, it will be interesting to see how they perform on the court as adversaries. Satwik’s smashes and his dancing skills have been a major talking point of the league as the 19-year-old looks to be thoroughly enjoying his first stint with the yellow brigade. Shetty, meanwhile, has shown exceptional chemistry with world champion Hendra Setiawan and has gone a flawless 2-0 in Pune’s outings so far. (IANS)