Basel, Mar 15:
Producing yet another emphatic performance, Indian giant slayer P V Sindhu today stunned the recently-crowned All England champion Shixian Wang to breeze into the semifinals even as it was end of road for Saina Nehwal at the USD 125,000 Swiss Grand Prix Gold here.
In the men’s singles, Parupalli Kashyap also booked a semifinal berth with a hard-fought victory over sixth seed Tien Chen Chou of Chinese Taipei.
Seventh seed Sindhu played a dominating game to assert her supremacy over two-time All England Champion with a 21-17 21-15 win in a 45-minute match to set up a semifinal clash with another fast emerging Chinese Sun Yu.
It was Sindu’s third win over Shixian in as many matches. Last year she had humbled the Chinese at the World Championship in the quarterfinals.
However, Olympic bronze medallist Saina had a tough time dealing with the world number three Yihan Wang as she slipped to a 17-21 2-21, her seventh defeat to a Chinese, in a 38-minute match.
Kashyap, meanwhile, took an hour and 14 minutes to tame Tien 21-15 21-23 21-18 — his second win against the Taiwanese — and would face world number 27 Houwei Tian of China in the semifinals.
World number 9 Sindhu showed once again why she is considered to be India’s next big badminton sensation as she produced a beautifully controlled and carefully-paced game to keep Shixian at bay through out the quarterfinal match.
The third seed Chinese did fight hard Sindhu was always on guard and marched ahead everytime Shixian tried to claw her way back.
In the first game, Sindhu broke off at 12-12 and in the second game, the Indian never allowed Shixian to grab the lead and from 16-15. But the Indian reeled off five straight points to seal her place in the semifinals against Sun.
The World champion bronze medallist, however, have to be careful against Sun in her revenge attempt as it was the Chinese who had sent her crashing in the opening round of the All England Champion. The duo holds a 2-2 record in international badminton.
Sixth seed Saina, however, who will turn 24 on Monday, could not gift herself a birthday gift as top seed Yihan once again stamped her authority on the Indian.
In the first game, Saina kept breathing down Yihan’s neck till 14-14, when the Chinese moved to 18-14 with four straight points and then pocketed it comfortably. In the second game, Saina narrowed down the gap to 8-9 after lagging 5-9 but after that it was Yihan’s show.
In the men’s singles, third seed Kashyap ran away with the opening game in a flash but Tien came back strongly in the next as Kashyap couldn’t press home the slender 7-4, 16-14 advantages.
However, in the decider, Kashyap wriggled out from an initial 3-5 disadvantage and held his fort till the end to enter his first semifinal of 2014. (PTI)
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