India Open: Sindhu in semis, Saina shown door
NEWDELHI: PV Sindhu remained in the hunt to defend her title by reaching the women’s semi-finals but Saina Nehwal was knocked out of the India Open on Friday. Saina looked a little sluggish and committed too many unforced errors to go down 10-21 13-21 to World No 11 American Beiwen Zhang. Olympic silver medallist Sindhu, however, recovered from a mid-game slump to outwit Spain’s world no 36 Beatriz Corrales 21-12 19-21 21-11 in the quarterfinal.
The World Championship silver medallist will next face 2013 World champion and world no. 3 Thai Ratchanok Inthanon.
PRANAAV, SIKKI IN FINAL FOUR
Mixed doubles pair of N Sikki Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra, who had reached the semifinals at Japan Open last year, entered the final four again after beating Chinese combo of Han Chengkai and Cao Tong Wei 21-8 21-13.
“We are not as physically strong as Asians, so after coach Kim Tan Her joined, he told us we are not supposed to play the Asian style of game and rather should focus on playing the European style of play and it has helped us,” said Pranaav.
The eighth seeded Indian duo will face fifth seeded Danish combo of Mathias Christiansen and Christinna Pedersen, who beat Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa 21-17 21-11 in another match.
Meanwhile, it turned out to be a disappointed day for Indian men’s singles players as Parupalli Kashyap, B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma suffered straight game losses to their respective opponents to bow out of the tournament.
Commonwealth Games champion Kashyap seemed a bit tired and couldn’t keep up with China’s Qiao Bin, losing 16-21 18-21 in the men’s singles quarterfinals.
Eighth seed Praneeth too failed to negotiate the fast-paced game of third seed Taiwanese Chou Tien Chen and went down 15-21 13-21 in another quarter-final. Later, Sameer also found the going tough against Malaysian qualifier Iskandar Zulkarnain, who had knocked out former champion Kidambi Srikanth yesterday. His 49 minute fight ended with a 17-21 14-21 scoreline.