Prannoy, who was the lone Indian in the fray in this top-tier event on the BWF World Series, went down to the 35-year-old World No. 9 player in hard-fought three games, going down 21-18, 15-21, 8-21 in the clash played out on Court 2 that lasted 65 minutes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The 33-year-old Prannoy established an early lead in the first game as he opened up a 6-2 lead, and though the Chinese Taipei shuttler had levelled scores at 9-9, the Indian star kept his nose ahead to eventually quell another fightback from his opponent (19-18) to win the game 21-18.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Prannoy fought back from 1-4 down in the second game and had his chances in the neck-and-neck battle 13-all before Chou won six points in a row to open up a lead and went on to win the game 21-15 and took the match into the decider. Prannoy failed to play his game in the third game and lost it tamely 8-21 to exit the tournament.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Asked to analyse the game, Prannoy said he found things tough in the second game, from where it turned against him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I think probably the second game was the crucial one there, and I think it was. I was probably finding it tough to kind of play in the 3rd. I was not getting the back length all of a sudden. Just felt it was too tight in the net game as well. And he was kind of pushing the 3rd, 3rd game, first half from the net. So I think, yeah, credit to him,\" said Prannoy after the match.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"I think he put the pressure in, but I think in the second game, probably I should have kept it a little bit tighter and could have made it a little bit longer,\" Prannoy added.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Earlier on the opening day, Prannoy had staged a remarkable comeback to save five match points and defeated World No. 18 Koki Watanabe of Japan 8-21, 21-16, 23-21 in the opening round, recovering from 2-11 down in the decider to pull off the comeback for the ages to wrap up a memorable win.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Asked whether his endurance had given up in the third game because of not playing enough high-level matches recently, Prannoy said that was not the case.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Earlier on the opening day, Prannoy had staged a remarkable comeback to save five match points and defeated World No. 18 Koki Watanabe of Japan 8-21, 21-16, 23-21 in the opening round, recovering from 2-11 down in the decider to pull off the comeback for the ages to wrap up a memorable win.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Prannoy felt there were still some takeaways for him from the China Open. \"Yeah, I think I hadn't really trained much before this week. So, I think considering that, it probably was a decent performance. But really frustrated that probably I could have played a little better 3rd set today, and I think it just went out in a whisker and probably should have made it a little bit more lengthy than what really happened,\" said Prannoy in the post-match interaction.<\/p>\r\n\r\n