Swiss Open: Kidambi Srikanth storms into semis; Priyanshu and Kiran lose

Experienced Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth continued his stellar run in the Swiss Open Super 300 tournament and stormed into the semifinal on Friday night.

Facing Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals, Srikanth won 21-10, 21-14.

Srikanth started strongly against the Chinese Taipei shuttler and raced to a lead of 7-1 in early exchanges. Lee tried to make a comeback and took three consecutive points, but Srikanth activated his beast mode to gain a lead of 11-5 at the break.

He continued his onslaught after the break with a mix of drops and smashes winning the first game 21-10.

Lee, who defeated Lakshya Sen in the pre-quarterfinals, induced a couple of errors from Srikanth in the second game and was tied at 8-8 but the Indian shuttler found extra gear with his attack and knocked out Lee winning the second game 21-14.

Srikanth will play Lin Chun Yi of Chinese Taipei in the semifinal.

In the other men's singles matches, Priyanshu Rajawat and Kiran George were knocked out.

While Priyanshu went down against Chou Tien Chen in straight games (15-21, 19-21), Kiran lost to Rasmus Gemke (23-21, 17-21, 15-21).

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand too bowed out after a disappointing straight-game defeat to Australia's Setyana Mapasa and Angela Yu.

The Commonwealth Games bronze medallists, seeded eight at the Swiss Open, went down 14-21 15-21 in 35 minutes to the unseeded Australian duo.

The Indian pair struggled from the beginning and was playing catch up the entire match as Mapasa and Yu brushed aside the world No. 26 duo with ease.

Treesa and Gayatri currently share the 14th place in the Olympic Games qualification ranking. The loss will hurt their chances of making the cut for the Paris Olympics later this year.

In doubles, a maximum of two pairings can qualify only if they are in the top 8 by April 28, or else the top pair inside world number 16 will make the cut for the Olympics.