How with long rallies and tall tosses, Malvika Bansod ousted World No 12 Yeo Jia Min
Malvika Bansod politely declined the offer of having legendary coach Irwansyah sit for her All England opening match against Singaporean Yeo Jia Min. The Indonesian perfectly understood, as Malvika and her regular coach for the last two years at Thane’s Shrikant Vad Academy, Vignesh Devlekar, had a plan to take down the World No 12. The 23-year-old from Nagpur had lost to Jia Min previously and was coming off a first-round loss from Orleans. But pushing herself beyond limits of exhaustion, with both players utterly knackered by the end, Malvika recorded a stunning 21-13, 10-21, 21-17 victory to advance to the second round. Things were tricky at 11-9 in the decider, but Malvika did well to conserve energy, and mix her usually well-executed high tosses and lifts with attacking openings on cross shots as Jia Min tired out, fading off at the baseline. Vignesh had won five national ranking titles in 2019 in doubles, and played Maldives Open, the only international trip he could afford on his parents’ salaries that year – mother a BMC …