PV Sindhu cruise into semi-finals of Badminton World Championships; Saina Nehwal exits

Ace Indian shuttler PV Sindhu outclassed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in straight sets to cruise into the semi-finals but Saina Nehwal, Sai Praneeth and the mixed doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy crashed out in the quarterfinals of the Badminton World Championships on Friday.

Sindhu defeated Okuhara 21-17, 21-19, in a 59-minute clash and assured herself a fourth medal at the Championships. She will next take on another Japanese and world number two Akane Yamaguchi, who beat Chen Yufei of China to progress into the semis.

World No. 3 Sindhu bounced back from big deficits in both the games to avenge her defeat in the summit clash of the last edition against the same opponent. Okuhara had overcome the Indian 19-21, 22-20, 20-22 to win the gold medal last year, but this time although she took huge leads in both the games, she failed to overcome the gritty Sindhu.

Also Read: Saina, Sindhu progress into quarter-finals of Badminton World Championships; Srikanth ousted

The Japanese led 3-7 in the first set and 3-9 in the second but could not hold on to her leads as Sindhu fought back in emphatic fashion to clinch the victory.

“I knew it is going to be very long and I have to be very patient. When I was down at 8-11 in the second game, I backed myself and came back strong,” she said after the match quoted the Times of India.

It was, however, curtains for Saina Nehwal, who suffered a straight game defeat against two-time champion Carolina Marin to bow out of the tournament. She seemed clueless against the hard-hitting Spaniard and lost 6-21, 11-21 in a lop-sided match.

The opening game lasted just 12 minutes and was well over even before Saina could measure her opponent, with Marin winning 14 points, before closing the game with a smash.

Saina though tried her best in the second game, where she went toe-on-toe against her opponent of the 2015 Championship final. The Indian was just one point behind with the score at 5-4, but from there Marin surged ahead to 11-8 at the break. She then left the 28-year-old stunned with an aggressive display attacking her with every shot.

Meanwhile, Sai Praneeth and the mixed doubles pair of Ponnappa and Rankireddy proved no match for their respective opponents, both losing in straight games to knock themselves out of the tournament.

While Praneeth lost to the sixth-seeded Japanese Kento Momota 21-12, 21-12 in a 39-minute clash, Ponnappa-Rankireddy were defeated by the top-seeded Chinese combo of Yaqiong Huang and Siwei Zheng 17-21, 10-21.