India Open 2018: PV Sindhu beats Beatriz Corrales to book semi-final berth; Parupalli Kashyap, B Sai Praneeth lose

New Delhi: PV Sindhu took another step closer to retaining her title as she reached the women’s singles semi-final in the $350,000 India Open Super 500 badminton tournament in New Delhi on Friday. Sindhu dished out an attacking game to beat Spain’s World No 36 Beatriz Corrales 21-12, 19-21, 21-11 in the 35-minute quarterfinal match. The Olympic silver medallist will face 2013 World champion Ratchanok Inthanon of Thailand in the semifinals. [caption id=“attachment_4057217” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of PV Sindhu. AFP[/caption] Sindhu dished out an attacking game to walk away with the opening game without much ado but Corrales came back in the second to lead 19-11. Sindhu, however, reeled off seven points to draw parity at 18-18 but a lucky net chord kept the Spaniard alive in the match. Back to the winning side of the court, Sindhu once again showed class as she zoomed to a 11-6 advantage at the lemon break. Corrales tried to make a comeback but the Indian ensured there are no hiccups as she used her disguised returns to bamboozle the Spaniard. A jump smash gave Sindhu 10 match points. Corrales won a long rally before she hit long to hand over the match to Sindhu. However, it turned out to be a disappointing day for Parupalli Kashyap and B Sai Praneeth as they suffered straight game defeats to their respective opponents to bow out of the tournament. Commonwealth Games champion Kashyap seemed a bit tired and could not match China’s Qiao Bin, losing 16-21, 18-21 in the men’s singles quarterfinals. Kashyap blew a 7-2 lead early on in the opening game, while in the second, he erased 4-11 and 8-16 deficit to claw his way back at 18-18 before Bin surged to close out the match. “I was struggling to continue the long rallies. May be I was tired after the last match. I had a chance in the second game but somehow I was not able to read, come forward and kill the rallies. Some part of my defence I am not happy with. I perhaps should have prepared better,” Kashyap said. Eighth seed Praneeth too failed to negotiate the fast-paced game of third seed Taiwanese Chou Tien Chen and went down 15-21, 13-21. Praneeth was 6-11 behind at the break and though he levelled par at 14-14, Chen quickly changed gears to pocket the first game. Nothing changed in the second game as the Indian trailed 4-9 before making it 10-11 at the interval. But Chen stepped up and walked away with the match. “He was hitting rally hard. It was long rallies and suddenly he was changing the pace and hitting hard. I was rushing but I should have been more patient on court,” Praneeth said. Among others, top seeded Indonesian Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo shut out the fighting Indian men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy 21-19, 21-19, while sixth seeded women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost 17-21, 21-23 to Chinese pair of Du Yue and Li Yinhui. Seventh seeded Indian pair of Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram lost 10-21, 15-21 to second seeded Thai pair of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai.