Malaysia Masters: Sindhu, Prannoy progress; Srikanth out
KUALA LUMPUR: PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy advanced to the women’s and men’s singles semi-finals of the Malaysia Masters Super 500 tournament with hard-fought wins over their respective opponents here on Friday.
While Sindhu, seeded sixth and ranked 13 in the world, defeated Yi Man Zhang of China 21-16, 13-21, 22-20 in the quarter-final stage, Prannoy earned a 25-23, 1821, 21-13 victory over Kenta Nishimoto of Japan.
In the last-four phase, Sindhu will face World No.9 Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia, who got the better of Yi Zhi Wang from China 21-18, 22-20.
World No.9 Prannoy will take on Christian Adinata after the Indonesian qualifier, ranked 57, beat Kidambi Srikanth 16-21, 21-16, 21-11 in another quarter-final.
In the Sindhu-Zhang match, the first game was an intriguing one. Sindhu found herself on the back foot as she trailed 0-5, but made a fine recovery to level the score at 10-all. After that, Sindhu led all through and clinched the opener 21-16.
In the second game, Zhang learnt her lessons and did not allow Sindhu to make a comeback. After the score was locked at two points each, the Chinese moved ahead and maintained her supremacy to level the match at one-all.
The decider was closely contested throughout and could have gone either way. After the scorecard read 17all, Sindhu notched up three successive points to secure two match points. While Zhang saved each one of them, Sindhu ultimately held her nerve to clinch the next two points and a semi-final berth.
In men’s singles, Prannoy found himself in a tough tussle with Nishimoto in the first game as the score was level at 12-all.
The two did not give each other an inch before the Indian edged out the Japanese 25-23 in the opener.
The second game followed a similar pattern, but it was Nishimoto who took the initiative and marched to a 1711 lead after the players were locked at nine-all. Prannoy fought back to reduce the gap, but could not prevent his rival from taking the match into a decider.
The third game turned out to be a one-sided affair in favour of Prannoy as the Indian outplayed his opponent from start to finish to progress to the next round.