PV Sindhu, the double Olympic medallist, marched into the semifinals of the Madrid Spain Masters while her fellow Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth was knocked out of the tournament on Friday.
Sindhu defeated Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt, ranked 19th in the world, with a score of 21-14 21-17 to reach the semifinals of a tournament for the first time this year.
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On the other hand, Srikanth lost his quarterfinal match in straight sets to top-seeded Japanese shuttler Kenta Nishimoto with scores of 18-21 15-21 in the men’s singles category.
Sindhu, seeded second in the tournament, has been struggling to regain her rhythm after a long injury layoff.
She has slipped out of the world’s top 10 rankings and has failed to make it past the second round in recent tournaments this year.
After a sluggish start to her game, the former world champion displayed her brilliance in the second half of the match to win the first game comfortably.
She was trailing for most of the second set, but Sindhu made a strong comeback from 6-12 down to clinch a straight-set victory.
Sindhu is the only Indian remaining in the Super 300 tournament and will take on Singapore’s unseeded Yeo Jia Min for a place in the final.
In an earlier match, the former world number one and fifth seed, Srikanth, showed flashes of brilliance but failed to advance to the next round due to his inconsistency, which has been his downfall this season.
This was Srikanth’s third defeat to the Japanese shuttler.