TN Badminton League: Dazzle Force storm into final

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Chennai: It requires a lot of guts to bet against even a half-fit Chetan Anand not winning. When he claims to be as fit as a fiddle with seemingly no injuries bothering him then it would be foolhardy to predict anything other than an outright win for him given the opposition he is up against is pedestrian, to put it mildly. And so as he has been doing in his past three matches, former world number 10 Chetan of Dazzle Force made a mockery of Jhaver Smashers Velavan 21-14, 21-10 in the TNBL here on Saturday.
In the final to be held on Sunday, Dazzle Force who recorded a 3-0 win over Smashers will meet the equally impressive Chennai Singams who blanked Ed 6 Skill Angels by an identical scoreline in the semifinals.
For Velavan, who is Tamil Nadu’s number one singles player, there was to be no redemption as he got a similar pasting at the hands of Chetan on Friday in the team’s last league encounter.
Such was the gulf in class that Chetan despite being uncharacteristically sloppy to begin with gradually got into his groove and in a matter of 10 minutes took command of the game.
A few of his trademark smashes were on view as a desperate Velavan tried everything he could but with the zone Chetan was in it didn’t prove enough.
Meanwhile Chennai Singams Yuhan Tan had to survive a few nervy moments before he scraped past Uganda’s Edwin Ekiring in a cliffhanger of a contest 22-20, 21-16. In the second game, Yuhan was oozing with confidence and never looked in danger as he comfortably sealed the tie in 25 minutes.
Results:
Dazzle Force bt Jhaver Smashers 3-0 (Vijay Anand/Dhanya Nair bt Kevin/Kritteka 21-10, 12-21, 21-14. Chetan Anand bt Velavan 21-14, 21-10.Vembarasan/Naveen bt Surya Prakash/Akilesh 2112, 21-10).
Chennai Singams bt Ed 6 Skill Angels 3-0 (Oliver/Tara Pilven bt Vijay Aloysius/Stacy Doubell 2115, 21-17. Yuhan Tan bt Edwin Ekiring 22-20, 21-16.A.K. Sudarshan/Karan Rajan bt Aswin/Sri Teja 1821, 21-14, 21-10).