Glory for India again in the Paralympic Games as Indian para-shuttler Krishna Nagar held on to his nerve to win his gold medal match against opponent Chu Man Kai from Hong Kong who did ensure that the Indian’s mistakes did not go unpunished in the Men’s singles SH6 event.
The match was a close one, for sure, as both players could have won the match till the very end. Nagar took the initial lead in the first set but Chu came back fast to make the score 6-6. Nagar again took the lead in the set with the score at 9-8 but Chu came back again and first tied up the score and then started to take a slender of 10-11. He widened the gap with the Indian trailing and it looked like the set was out of his grasp with a four-point gap of 12-16 but Nagar did not give up and came back to win the set 21-17 as he only conceded one point there on.
The second set went the same way with Nagar taking the initial lead but failing to capitalise on it and allowing his opponent to come back with a score of 4-5. Nagar tied it but trailed again as the Hong Kong para-shuttler maintained a lead of 4 points throughout the set which eventually turned to 5 as he won the set 16-21 to ensure that the decider set happen.
Nagar continued the trend as he made many mistakes throughout the match, even in the third set. The Indian took a lead of 7-2 but Chu closed the gap again and again, once during this point and once when he was trailing by 13-8 but managed to take five consecutive points to tie it but Nagar held on to his nerve and with some brilliant shots opened up a three-point lead at 19-16. He eventually ended up winning the set and the match.
The World No. 1 won India’s fifth gold medal at the Games. Earlier, Suhas Yathiraj won silver after a heartbreaking loss to Lucas Mazur in the SL4 Men Singles event final.
