New Delhi: Two of the Sindhu Olympic medal developed into a single semifinal of women after beating fellow Ashmita Chalica in a direct match at Yonex-Sunrise India Open Badminton Tournament on Friday.
Sindhu’s top seed, a former world champion, takes 36 minutes to get better than Chaliha 21-7, 21-18 which is better and set up the last four matches with Supanida Katethong Thailand, seeded sixth.
Kathong entered the semifinals after the third seed Yeo Jia Min Singapore came out of the tournament because of “high fever”.
The last time Sindhu faced Chalih, at the 83th Yonex-Sunrise Senior National Championship in 2019, young people from Assam had produced vibrant performance.
On Friday, Chalih took the time to enter the groove and put on a good fight in the second match but could not stop Sindhu from walking away with the match.
Sindhu took out all the weapons that lit up in the opening game, jumped into the tin 11-5 at the interval and then rolled the last 10 points to get bragging rights.
Chaliha gave a better account about himself in the second game when he tied 9-9 before Sindhu managed a slim one point profit at rest.
Sindhu was enlarged to be 15-11 but Chalih quickly clawed back to 15-15.
After that, Sindhu turned the teeth and won four match points.
Chalio saved two match points before Sindhu closed the match.
In other semifinals, Aakshi Kashyap will face the second seed Thai Busany Ongbamrungphan after India squadged 21-12, 21-15 won against compatriot Malvika Bansod in the quarter-finals on Friday.
Bukaran beat Lauren Lams 21-12, 21-8 in eight other final matches.
Men’s double pair from Ishaan Bhatnagar and Sai Prateek K cut a sad figure against Malaysian Third Seeds Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi, lost 7-21, 7-21 in just 19 minutes.
In a mixed double, Indian couple Venkat Gaurav Prasad and Juhi Admbelled, 8th seed, did not match the Malaysian combination of Chen Tang Jie and peck Yen Wei, down 10-21, 13-21 in just 23 minutes.
Another pair of Indians from Nithin HV and Ashwini Bhat K lost 15-21, 19-21 to Hee Yong Kai Terry and Tan Wei Han to bend from the $ 400,000 event.