Two-time Indian Olympic medalist PV Sindhu continued her impressive run at the Roland Garros badminton tournament by qualifying for the women’s singles semi-finals on Friday with a back-to-back victory over Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan. Third-seeded Sindhu posted a convincing 21-14 21-14 victory over the eighth seed in 38 minutes to bring her dominating record against the Thai to 14-1. The 26-year-old from Hyderabad also beat Busanan at the Danish Open last week. Reigning world champion Sindhu beat Denmark’s Line Christophersen, ranked 24th in the world 21-19 21-9 on Thursday night to enter the quarters.
India’s world number seven will now cross swords with Japanese world number 15 Sayaka Takahashi in the final four on Saturday.
However, young Lakshya Sen’s fine run ended in the men’s singles quarter-final after losing 17-21 15-21 to Korean Heo Kwanghee in 43 minutes.
The 20-year-old from Almora picked up a comfortable back-to-back victory over Loh Kean Yew of Singapore to grab a place in the bottom eight.
Satwiksairaj’s men’s duo Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also didn’t break through the quarter-final hurdle, losing 21-18 18-21 17-21 to fourth seeded Malaysian Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik .
On Thursday, Satwik and Chirag beat MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila 15-21 21-10 21-19 in an all-Indian clash to reach the quarter-finals.
It was a clinical demonstration of Sindhu in the quarterfinals as she initially took a 5-1 lead before increasing to 11-6 at the break. She continued in the same vein after the break, jumping to 18-7 to finally comfortably pocket the first game.
The second game turned out to be a close battle with Sindhu and Busanan engaging in a fierce battle. However, Sindhu broke at 8-8 to take a two point advantage at the interval.
Sindhu rose again after the break to climb to 16-10 and 20-12. Busanan saved two match points before Sindhu sealed the match.
Men’s singles player Sourabh Verma, however, retired from the competition after losing 12-21 9-21 to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto in the second round.
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