Former champions P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth stayed on course to reclaim titles while a vintage Parupalli Kashyap too regained some form, sealing his place in the men’s singles semifinals of the USD 350,000 India Open on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sindhu, a 2017 champion and 2016 finalist, edged out Denmark’s eighth seed Mia Blichfeldt 21-19, 22-20 in a closely-fought contest to set up a clash with China’s He Bingjiao on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I should have finished it earlier. I made too many errors. He Bingjiao and she is a tricky player. I have to be more patient,” Sindhu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Srikanth finally snapped his series of quarterfinal finishes, outwitting compatriot B Sai Praneeth 21-23, 21-11, 21-19 in a 62-minute pulsating contest, while Kashyap entered his first semifinals of a top-tier event (World Tour Super 500 or Superseries) in almost four years, beating Chinese Taipei’s Wang Tzu Wei 21-16, 21-11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Srikanth will face China’s Huang Yuxiang, while Kashyap takes on former world champion and former world no 1 Viktor Axelsen.HS Prannoy couldn’t match up with the second-seeded Axelsen, going down 10-21 16-21 in a match that had some tight fights in the second game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Srikanth had made eight quarterfinal finishes in last nine tournaments and the Indian didn’t look to make the last 8 after he lost the opening game narrowly and lagged 1-7 in the second.But a gritty Srikanth saved five game points, fighting back from 16-20 down before Praneeth staved off the challenge to take the opening game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wang made it 16-16 with Kashyap committing a few mistakes at the net but hit flat jabs and punches to the back of the court, pocketing the opening game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kashyap took control of the net and retrieved everything, while Wang looked erratic with his smashes. Kashyap led 6-3 again in the second game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kashyap, who had reached the finals at 2017 US Open and won the 2018 Austrian Open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Praneeth managed to grab a 7-1 lead to raise hopes of an upset but Srikanth came back strongly and took the match to the decider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The turning point of the match was in the second game when I was 1-7 down and I fought back. From there, things changed. At 19-19 in the decider it could have gone either way. but I played well in the crucial points. So happy with my performance,” Srikanth said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the adjacent court, Kashyap made a confident start, leading 6-3 early on but three successive returns at the forehand corner of Wang going out allowed his opponent to keep pace with the Indian who enjoyed a 11-8 lead at the break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He is a tricky player. He has good skills at the net. He takes risks and hits some good half smashes. I kept retrieving the shuttle and could attack and counter his strokes.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Men’s doubles sixth seeds Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy effortlessly won an all-Indian quarter-final clash with Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Shivam Sharma 21-10, 21-12. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are the last Indian pair standing at this prestigious tournament after the 10-21, 18-21 defeat of Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy to top seeds Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former champions P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth stayed on course to reclaim titles while a vintage Parupalli Kashyap too regained some form, sealing his place in the men’s singles semifinals of the USD 350,000 India Open on Friday. Sindhu, a 2017 champion and 2016 finalist, edged out Denmark’s eighth seed Mia Blichfeldt 21-19, 22-20 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58072","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\/58072","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=58072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58074,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58072\/revisions\/58074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}