Sindhu sails into semis, Srikanth loses
Top Indian shuttler PV Sindhu on Friday entered the women’s singles semi-finals of the $210,000 Spain Masters with a straight games win at the Centro Deportivo Municipal Gallur in Madrid.
The former world champion defeated Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt 21-14, 21-17 in 40 minutes to enter the last four of the Super 300 tournament. This was Sindhu’s sixth victory in seven meetings against the world No 19.
Blichfeldt started well but Sindhu caught up with the Dane, levelling the opening game at 6-all before taking the initiative and going into the lead. Blichfeldt stayed on Sindhu’s heels till 14-15 before the world No 11 pulled out six straight points to win the first game.
In the second game, Blichfeldt, who finished runners-up at the Swiss Open on Sunday, took a 12-6 lead in the second game. But Sindhu fought back to draw level at 17-all. The momentum with her, SIndhu won the next four points to enter the semi-finals.
The second-seeded Indian will take on Singaporean Yeo Jia Min next against whom she has an unblemished record having never lost even a game in any of the previous three meetings.
A double Olympic medallist, 2023 hasn’t worked out as planned for Sindhu, who went out of action after winning the Commonwealth Games gold last year in Birmingham. After her stress fracture healed, Sindhu made a return to the circuit in January but lost her first three individual tournaments of the year – Malaysia Open, India Open and All England Open – in the opening round.
She won the first round as defending champion at the Swiss Open in Basel last week but went down in Round 2. This is Sindhu’s first semi-final appearance since winning gold at the Commonwealth Games last year.
Earlier in the day, Kidambi Srikanth went down in his men’s singles quarter-final to Japanese top seed Kenta Nishimoto. The fifth-seeded former world No 1 lost 18-21, 15-21 in 41 minutes. This was Srikanth’s third loss in eight outings against the world No 15.
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