BALI: India’s two-time Olympic medal-winning shuttler P V Sindhu came back from a game down to beat South Korea’s Sim Yujin and enter the semifinals of the Indonesia Open Super 1000 tournament here on Friday.
Third seed Sindhu, the reigning world champion, had to toil hard to get the better of Yujin 14-21 21-19 21-14 in the quarterfinal that lasted an hour and six minutes.
The Indian will now play the winner of the other quarterfinal between Japan’s Asuka Takahashi and second seed Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand in the USD 850,000 event.
The other India in fray, B Sai Praneeth will play Olympic champion and former world No.1 Viktor Axelsen of Denmark in the men’s singles quarterfinals later in the day.
Praneeth, world no.16, staved off a spirited fight from France’s world no 70 Christo Popov, claiming a 21-17 14-21 21-19 win in a gruelling second round match on Thursday.
India’s challenge also exists in the men’s doubles event where the sixth seeded pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, ranked 11, will square off against the Malaysian combination of Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin in the quarterfinals later on Friday.
It was not smooth sailing from Sindhu against Yujin. The Indian started confidently racing to a 7-1 lead before the Japanese pocketed six straight points to draw the first game level.
—PTI

Press Trust of India