Sindhu, Prannoy advance to semifinals, Srikanth out

Press Trust Of India

Kuala Lumpur: Star Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy advanced to the women’s and men’s singles semifinals of the Malaysia Masters Super 500 tournament with hardfought wins over their respective opponents here on Friday. While double Olympic medallist Sindhu, seeded sixth in the tournament, beat lower ranked Yi Man Zhang of China 21-16, 13- 21, 22-20, Prannoy earned a 25-23, 18-21, 21-13 win over Kenta Nishimoto of Japan in the quarterfinals.

Sindhu faces seventh seed and world number nine Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia in the semifinals on Saturday. Tunjung upset second seed Yi Zhi Wang of China in the quarterfinals 21-18, 22-20. Tunjung has been in fine form recently and Sindhu had lost to her in the Madrid Spain Masters final in straight games in April. The Indian will, however, go into the semifinals with a 7-1 head-to-head advantage over Tunjung.

World number nine Prannoy faces qualifier Christian Adinata, ranked 57, of Indonesia, who beat Kidambi Srikanth 16-21, 21-16, 21-11 in another quarterfinals, in the semifinals of Saturday. Prannoy has never played against the 21-yearold Adinata, who began playing at the senior level just last year.

For world number 13 Sindhu, it was a revenge of sort for her round-of-32 loss to Zhang, ranked 18th, in the All England Open earlier this year. She had also beaten her Chinese opponent in the same tournament last year. The first game was an intriguing one. Sindhu found herself on the back foot as she trailed 0-5, but she made a fine recovery and made the score 10-all. After that, Sindhu led all through and clinched the first game 21-16.

In the second game, Zhang learnt her lessons and did not allow Sindhu to come back unlike in the first. From 2-all, it was Zhang who led all through till the end to make the tie 1-1. The decider was neckand-neck all through and it could have gone either way. From 12-all onwards, the shuttlers didn’t give each other more than a two-point lead, and it went like that till 17-all.