India\u2019s top two shuttle queens, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal set up a blockbuster summit showdown by winning their respective semi-finals in contrasting fashion at the Yonex-Sunrise 83rd Senior National Badminton Championships 2018-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While top seed PV Sindhu staved off a gutsy fightback from Assam\u2019s wonderkid Ashmita Chaliha to secure a 21-10, 22-20 win, defending champion Saina Nehwal had it easier against Vaishnavi Bhale whom she beat 21-15, 21-14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The summit clash will see the two taking on each other in a rematch of the enthralling final that they played in the last edition. Saina, winner of the Nationals in 2006-07 and 2018, will aim for her fourth title and Sindhu will try to lay her hands on the coveted trophy after earlier triumphs in 2011 and 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The men\u2019s singles final will be a repeat of the 2017 final between two-time champion Sourabh Verma and Asian junior champion Lakshya Sen. Verma, who earlier knocked out the second seed Sai Praneeth in the quarter-finals, did not put a foot wrong in his 21-14, 21-17 demolition of Mumbai shuttler Kaushal Dharmamer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen came back from a deficit in the second game to end the run of 2012 champion and third seed Parupalli Kashyap 21-15, 21-16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the Sindhu vs Chaliha semi-final match that grabbed everybody\u2019s attention for the sheer resilience shown by the 19-year-old Assamese youngster. The two-time champion had to claw her way back from 16-19 down in the second game and needed two match points to douse the challenge of the spirited fourth seed Chaliha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The teenager had already announced her arrival last year with BWF titles at the Dubai International Challenge and the Tata Open. On Day 4 of the Senior Nationals, she gave yet another display of her immense talent when she steadied her nerves and got back into contention from an 8-13 deficit in the second game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Egged on by the motley crowd, the fearless girl drew level at 13-13 and jumped into a 17-14 lead against the Rio Olympic silver medallist before advancing to 19-16. That\u2019s where Sindhu\u2019s vast experience came in handy and she evened the score at 19-19 to have a match point at 20-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the resilient Ashmita was not done yet and she saved the first match point only to see her World No. 6 opponent wrap it up on her second in 38 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nehwal wasn\u2019t troubled by Nagpur girl Bhale as much. The closest that the 22-year-old came to Saina was when she fought back from 2-5 down in the second game to trail by a solitary point at 5-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World Junior Championships bronze medallist Sen made a brilliant start against Kashyap in a battle of generations, racing ahead to 11-3. In the second game, it was the 32-year-old who enjoyed a 5-3 advantage before the 17-year-old Sen clawed his way back to 7-7 and completed the win thereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the doubles semi-finals, top seeds Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg needed only 32 minutes to dispatch Vighnesh Devlekar and Harika V 21-15, 21-16 to enter the mixed doubles final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They will take on the unseeded combine of Manu Attri and Maneesha K, who continued their rampage with a fine 21-18, 21-17 win over Shlok Ramchandran and Mithula UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India\u2019s top two shuttle queens, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal set up a blockbuster summit showdown by winning their respective semi-finals in contrasting fashion at the Yonex-Sunrise 83rd Senior National Badminton Championships 2018-19. While top seed PV Sindhu staved off a gutsy fightback from Assam\u2019s wonderkid Ashmita Chaliha to secure a 21-10, 22-20 win, defending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55100,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55098\/revisions\/55100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}