Badminton Senior Nationals: PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen enter semi-finals

Top seed PV Sindhu stormed into the semi-finals of the Yonex-Sunrise 83rd Senior National Badminton Championships 2018-19 with a commanding 21-16, 21-7 win over Riya Mookerjee, here on Thursday. The World No. 6 is seeking her third title at the Nationals following earlier triumphs in 2011 and 2013. Sindhu, who finished as the runner-up in the last edition, will next take on Assam’s wonderkid Ashmita Chaliha. The fourth seed showed remarkable guts and fighting spirit to come back from a game down and beat reigning junior national champion Aakarshi Kashyap 16-21, 21-17, 21-19. Maharashtra girl Vaishnavi Bhale, who was one of the qualifiers, too continued her sizzling run at the Nationals with a 19-21, 22-20, 21-11 comeback victory over the third seed Shriyanshi Pardeshi. In men’s singles, Lakshya Sen reached the semi-finals for the third consecutive time. The Asian junior champion and World Junior Championships bronze medallist needed just 20 minutes to blitz past Aryamann Tandon 21-14, 21-10. The 17-year-old former junior World No. 1 finished runner-up to Sourabh Verma in 2017 before losing in the semi-finals the following year. Four months after winning the Hatzor International title, Mumbai shuttler Kaushal Dharmamer carried on that confidence to the Nationals by reaching the semi-finals. Dharmamer staved off a late surge from Harsheel Dani to register a 21-11, 21-19 win in 52 minutes. Earlier in the morning session, Sindhu overcame a slow start to prevail over Malvika Bansod 21-11, 21-13 while Chaliha had got the better of Vaidehi Choudhari 21-13, 15-21, 21-12. Bhale did not have to work as hard and easily dismissed Sai Uttejitha Rao Chukka 21-13, 21-15. Lakshya had blown away Ansal Yadav 21-11, 21-8 in his pre-quarter-final clash. In contrast, Dharmamer had to labour for three games to secure a 14-21, 21-16, 21-17 win over Chirag Sen.

Winning start for Saina, Sai and Kashyap Three-time champion Saina Nehwal began her title defence with a strong 21-11, 21-10 win over Maharashtra’s rising star Shruti Mundada to enter the quarter-finals. The second seed, who will next take on Maharashtra girl Neha Pandit, started her challenge in the evening session just like former champions Sai Praneeth and Parupalli Kashyap. Men’s singles second seed Sai made short work of Rohit Yadav 21-10, 21-10 while third seed Kashyap rebounded strongly after dropping a game to beat Rahul Yadav 20-22, 21-17, 21-17. With the quarter-finals as well as the semi-final action wrapping up on Friday, all three of Nehwal, Kashyap and Sai have a high possibility of playing two matches in a single day.