Badminton
Kazakhstan International Challenge: Anmol Kharb bows out in quarters
Anmol lost to Japanese player Yoshikawa in a tight three-game match while Anupama Upadhyaya made it through to the final.
FILE PHOTO: Anmol Kharb of Haryana trains under Kusumm Singh at Noida's Sunrise Academy.
Anmol Kharb's good run ended in the quarterfinal stage where she lost to the Japanese player, Sorano Yoshikawa at the Kazakhstan International Challenge while Anupama Upadhyaya reached the final in women's singles on Friday.
Anmol lost to the higher-ranked Sorano in a 90-minute marathon match where the latter came out on top after the three-game encounter, 15-21, 21-18, 11-21. Anmol had a slow start in the first game and trailed big at the mid-game interval, 5-11.
She looked better in the second game and forced the decider in the match despite of few good drop shots from Sorano. In the decider, Anmol was completely exhausted and hence lost the game comfortably in the end.
Sorano could not recover well from this tiring match and bowed down to another Indian player Anupama Upadhyaya in the straight game (16-21, 24-22) affair at the semis.
In the final, Anupama will be up against the fellow Indian Isharani Baruah who won a close three-gamer against Hong Kong player Lo Sin yan Happy.
In men's singles, Tharun Mannepali reached the final with a dominating 21 -7, 21-8 win over seventh-seeded Le Duc Phat of Vietnam in the semifinals. Earlier, he upset (21-14, 22-20) the home favourite Dimitry Panarin in the quarterfinals.
He will face Malaysian player Soong Joo Ven in the final. Soong took a 21-19, 21-16 win over Bharat Raghav of India in his semi-final clash.
Indian mixed doubles pairing of Maneesha K and S Dhanraj also progressed to the final with a three-game (21-16, 10-21, 21-14) win over the Algerian pair of Koceila Mammeri and T Mammeri in the semis. They will also face the Malaysian pairing of Wong-Lim in the final.
