Chennai roar into another final

Much to the delight of an elderly man in veshti among ‘Pune, Pune’ chants, Chennai Lions coasted to an 8-3 win over Puneri Paltan in the second semifinal clash at the Ultimate Table Tennis league in Pune on Saturday.

The defending champions’ dominance began with Benedikt Duda making little work of his higher-ranked opponent Omar Assar in the opening match that set the ball rolling for Chennai.

Germany’s Duda (world No 32) refused to let Egypt’s Assar (world No 21) settle down, as he raced away to a 3-0 win in the men’s singles to give Chennai a solid lead.

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Duda’s team-mate Yangzi Liu then took to the court to extend the lead even further by defeating Hana Matelova 2-1.

With the overall scoreboard reading 5-1, Yangzi was joined by Sharath Kamal in the mixed doubles where a dropped game against Pune’s Manush Shah and Hana barely made a difference during their 2-1 win.

With Chennai needing just one more game to advance to the final, 23-year-old Manush pulled one back to keep Kamal wait for a bit longer. But the 41-year-old’s experience was too much to handle for the youngster as Kamal won the next game to lead Chennai to another title round.

Results (semifinal): Chennai Lions bt Puneri Paltan 8-3 (Benedikt Duda bt Omar Assar 3-0; Yangzi Liu bt Hana Matelova 2-1; Sharath Kamal/ Yangzi bt Manush Shah/ Hana 2-1; Sharath bt Manush 1-1) (The winner is declared once a team reaches eight points without the need to play the rest of the matches/ games).