Lucknow, Jan 21: Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu rallied from a game down to eke out a hard-fought win over Thailand’s Supanida Katething to enter the semifinals of the Syed Modi International Super 300 tournament here on Friday.
The top-seeded Indian beat her Thai rival, seeded sixth in the tournament, 11-21 21-12 21-17 in a quarterfinal match that lasted one hour and five minutes.
Sindhu will face fifth-seeded Russian Evgeniya Kosetskaya in the semifinals.
The other women’s semifinal will be an all-Indian affair between Malvika Bansod and Anupama Upadhyaya, both of whom winning their respective quarterfinal matches.
Bansod beat compatriot Aakarshi Kashyap 21-11 21-11 while Upadhyaya got the better of another Indian Samiya Imad Farooqui 24-22 23-21.
In the men’s singles, however, HS Prannoy crashed out of the tournament with a straight-game defeat to Arnaud Merkle of France in the quarterfinals.
The fifth-seeded Indian, a former top 10 player, lost 19-21 16-21 to his French opponent in a 59-minute quarterfinal match.
Mithun Manjunath, however, advanced to the semifinals after beating Sergey Sirant of Russia 11-21 21-12 21-18 in a quarterfinal match that lasted one hour and one minute.
Manjunath will face Merkle in the semifinals.
In the men’s doubles, sixth-seeded Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala defeated the duo of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Sai Pratheek 21-17 21-18 in an all-India quarterfinal match.
They will face another Indian pair of Prem Singh Chouhan and Rajesh Verma in the semifinals.
In the other men’s doubles quarterfinal match, fourth seeded Indians MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila defeated the French pair of Fabien Delrue and William Villeger 21-16 19-21 21-19. They face Malaysia’s Man Wei Chong and Kai Wun Tee in the semifinals.
In the women’s doubles quarterfinals, India’s Ramya Venkatesh Chickmenahalli and Apeksha Nayak conceded a walkover to eight seeded Malaysian pair of Anna Ching Yik Cheong and Teoh Mei Xing, who will face another Indian pair of Haritha M Harinarayanan and Ashna Roy in the semifinals.
Seventh seeded Indian pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Pullela Gopichand upset second seeded Russia duo of Anastasiia Akchurina and Olga Morozova 24-22 21-10 in another women’s doubles quarterfinal match.
The India pair will face Malaysia’s Low Yeen Yuan and Valeree Siow in the semifinals.
In the mixed doubles event, the Indian pair of MR Arjun and Treesa Jolly beat the eight seeded French duo of William Villeger and Anne Tran 24-22 21-17 in the quarterfinal match that lasted 42 minutes.
Arjun and Jolly will face compatriots and seventh seeded pair of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto in the semifinals. The Bhatnagar-Crasto pair beat another Indian duo of Ashith Surya and Pranjal Prabhu Chimulkar 21-13 21-19 in the quarterfinals.
The other mixed doubles semifinals will also be an all-Indian affair between the pairs of Akshan Shetty and Simran Singh, and T Hema Nagendra Babu and Srivedya Guruzada. (PTI)
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