Deaflympics 2021: Indian badminton team enters semifinal with 3-1 win over Turkey

The Indian badminton team has entered the semifinals of the ongoing Deaflympics at Caxias do Sul, Brazil. They defeated the team from Turkey 3-1 in the quarterfinal to set up a clash with Chinese Taipei in the final four.

India started the quarterfinal clash on the front foot as Abhinav Yadav downed Furkan Buyukgoze 21-13, 21-16 in 26 minutes to help India take the lead in the must win clash. Jerlin Jayaratchagan then followed his footsteps in women's singles as she breezed past Hale Nur Kucuksevgilli 21-11, 21-10 in a mere 19 minutes to put India in a commanding position.

With just one match win required to seal the semifinal spot, out walked the men's doubles pair of Hritik Anand and Rohit Bhaker. The duo, however, went down 20-22, 15-21 without a fight to Buyukgoze and Dogukan Yilmaz in just 27 minutes.

But, whatever hopes of a fightback the Turkish pair had was put to rest by the Indian women's doubles pair of Jerlin and Shreya Singla in the next 34 minutes.

Jerlin and Singla, first, eased the nerves in the Indian camp by winning the initial game 21-14. They did concede a hard fought second game 19-21, but maintained their composure to pocket the decider 21-13 and push India to the semifinals.

Earlier in the day, India had defeated hosts Brazil 5-0 in their Group D encounter and top their pool.

India will now go up against Chinese Taipei in the semifinals at 10:30 pm IST today. The other semifinal will be played between South Korea and Japan simultaneously. The winners of both semifinals will move to the final, while the losers will fight it out for the third place on the podium in the bronze medal match.