Sindhu, the reigning world champion, defeated Denmark's Line Christophersen, ranked 24th in the world 21-19 21-9 on Thursday.
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India’s double Olympic medallist P V Sindhu continued her impressive run at the French Open badminton tournament by sailing into the women’s singles semifinals with a straight-game win over Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan on Friday. Sindhu, seeded third, scripted a convincing 21-14 21-14 win over eighth seeded in 38 minutes to extend her dominating head-to-head record against the Thai to 14-1. The 26-year-old from Hyderabad had beaten Busanan at Denmark Open also, last week.
Sindhu, the reigning world champion, defeated Denmark’s Line Christophersen, ranked 24th in the world 21-19 21-9 on late Thursday night to enter the quarters. The world number seven Indian will now cross swords with Japan’s world number 15 Sayaka Takahashi in the last four on Saturday. However, young Lakshya Sen’s fine run ended in the men’s singles quarterfinal after he lost 17-21 15-21 to Korea’s Heo Kwanghee in 43 minutes.
The 20-year-old from Almora had notched up a comfortable straight game win over Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew to grab a place in the last eight. Men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also couldn’t cross the quarterfinal hurdle, losing 21-18 18-21 17-21 to fourth seeded Malaysian combine of Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik. On Thursday, Satwik and Chirag beat MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila 15-21 21-10 21-19 in an all-Indian clash to reach the quarterfinals.
It was a clinical display by Sindhu in the quarterfinals as she zoomed to a 5-1 lead initially before moving to 11-6 at the break. She continued in the same vein after the interval, jumping to 18-7 to eventually pocket the opening game comfortably. The second game turned out to be a close battle with Sindhu and Busanan engaging in a fierce battle. However, Sindhu broke off at 8-8 to grab a two-point advantage at the interval. Sindhu once again stepped up after the break to climb to 16-10 and 20-12.
Busanan saved two match points before Sindhu sealed the contest. Men’s singles player Sourabh Verma, however, bowed out of the competition after losing 12-21 9-21 to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto in the second round.
Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth suffered a heartbreaking defeat to world No 1 Kento Momota in the second round of the French Open Super 750 Badminton tournament in Paris on Wednesday. The 28-year-old gave his absolute best before going down fighting to the Japanese 18-21, 22-20, 19-21. Meanwhile India’s mixed doubles team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponappa advanced in the tournament. The Indian pair defeated Denmark’s Mathias Thyrri and Mai Surrow 21-19, 21-15, here at Court 1.
Srikanth played his heart out to match the two time world champion and also held a two-point lead towards the end of the decider but ended up losing the match at the end of a gruelling 79 minutes. The Rio Olympics quarterfinalist had lost to Momota last week in the Denmark open as well but he produced a much improvised performance this time around and came agonisingly close to outwitting the world No 1 only to fall short in the end.
