Kuala Lumpur: India’s ace shuttler PV Sindhu progressed to the semifinals of the women’s singles event at the Malaysia Open badminton tournament after injury concerns forced her Japanese opponent Akane Yamaguchi to retire midway at the Stadium Axiata Arena here on Friday.
Two-time Olympic medallist Sindhu was leading 21-11 against reigning world champion Yamaguchi before the Japanese shuttler told the chair umpire she could not continue, as her injury was hampering her movement.
Yamaguchi, who arrived at the court with a knee brace, did not look comfortable from the outset as Sindhu quickly built up a 10-2 lead.
Yamaguchi struggled to move freely and looked frustrated when her shots missed the lines. Her tactic of pushing Sindhu deep into the backcourt did bring her 11 points, but too many unforced errors meant she made little impact on the final result.
The Indian took just 12 minutes to wrap up the first game, after which the Japanese conceded to give Sindhu her first Super 1000 semifinal in three years.
Sindhu reached the Malaysia Open semifinals for the first time in eight years and will next face either sixth-seeded Indonesian Putri Kusuma Wardani or second-seeded Chinese Wang Zhi Yi.
On Thursday, Sindhu beat 19-year-old Tomoka Miyazaki 21-8, 21-13 in 33 minutes to make her first Super 1000 quarterfinal of the season.
Later in the day, two-time world championships bronze medallists Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will be up against Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri, the sixth-seeded pair from Indonesia.
The third-seeded Indians advanced to the quarterfinals after securing a 21-18, 21-11 win over Malaysia’s Junaidi Arif and Roy King Yap in 39 minutes on Thursday.
With the victory, the Indians extended their head-to-head record against the Malaysian pair to 4–0.
On Wednesday, the women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost 21-9, 21-23, 21-19 to Febriana Dwipuji Kusuma and Meilysa Trias Puspita Sari of Indonesia to suffer an opening-round exit.
(IANS)
