Satwik-Ashwini in semifinals
The mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj and Ashwini Ponappa kept the Indians hope alive as ace Indian shuttler PV Sindhu crashed out after in the Thailand Open Badminton, here on Friday.
The Indian pair came out victorious with an 18-21, 2422, 22-20 win to make it to the last four.
Error-prone PV Sindhu suffered a demoralising defeat in the quarterfinals while Sameer Verma's gallant fight too ended in agony.
However, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy claimed twin wins in mixed and men's doubles quarterfinals along with Ashwini Ponnappa and Chirag Shetty to keep India's flag fluttering at the BWF World Tour Super 1000 tour nament here.
Sindhu looked a pale shad
ow of the player who had won the world championship gold in 2019 as she committed too many unforced errors to go down 13-21 9-21 against home favourite Ratchanok Inthanon.
In men's singles, Sameer's giant-killing run also came to
an end after he squandered a match point to go down 13-21 21-19 20-22 to world no. 3 Anders Antonsen of Denmark in a quarterfinal contest.
The doubles players, however, gave fans something to cheer as Satwik and Ashwini upstaged world no. 6 pair of
Peng Soon Chan and Liu Ying Goh of Malaysia 18-21 24-22 22-20 after toiling hard for one hour and 15 minutes.
Later in the day, Satwik and Chirag saw off another Malaysian pair of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi 21-18 24-22 in 37 minutes.