World Badminton: Saina in semis; Sindhu fails to make it

Saina Nehwal cruised into the semi-finals of the World Badminton Championships, beating China’s Wang Yihan in the last women’s singles quarter-final, in Jakarta, on Friday.

The London Olympics bronze medallist overcame a stiff fightback from the Chinese after winning the first game to prevail 21-15, 19-21, 21-19.

After surrendering the second game narrowly, Saina was always behind, but caught up at 8. However, she again fell behind again, only to recover and square things up at 18-18.

Thereafter, it was easy pickings as Yihan, the 2011 World champion but now well past her prime, ran out of steam.

Saina's third win, in 11 meetings, against her illustrious Chinese opponent guaranteed her a World Championships medal for the first time in her decade-long career.

Now the Indian ace has a golden opportunity to reach her maiden final. Standing in her way is unseeded Indonesian Lindaweni Fanetri, who took out the fourth seed, Taipei's Tzu Ying Tai, 14-21, 22-20, 21-12.

Earlier, twice bronze medalist P V Sindhu was beaten by Korea's Sung Ji Hyun in another women's singles quarter-final of badminton's showpiece event.

The 20-year-old from Hyderabad, who had beaten Olympic champion and former world No 1 Li Xuerui of China in the previous round on Thursday, lost 17-21, 21-19, 21-16 in 82 minutes.

Going into the match the world No 13 Indian, who won bronze in the 2013 and '14 editions of the tournament, enjoyed a 3-1 advantage over the Korean.

But it was clearly not her day. She fought back after losing the first game and took the match to the decider, only to commit too many unforced errors and be outwitted by a fine all-round showing from the Korean.

Eighth seeded Sung Ji-hyun will meet Spain's top seed and defending champion Carolina Marin, who took 68 minutes to beat China’s Wang Shixian 21-17, 21-19 in another quarter-final.

India’s women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa also bowed out after losing 23-25, 14-21 to Japan's Naoko-Kurumi in the quarter-finals.

The Japanese pair, after being taken the distance in the first game, proved too good for the Indians in the second, wrapping the match up in 46 minutes.

The 13th seeded Indian pair reached the quarter-finals beating Japan's Reika Kakiiwa and Miyuki Maeda of Japan 21-15, 18-21, 21-19.

India's challenge in the men’s singles ended on Thursday after world No 3 Kidambi Srikanth and No 12 H S Prannoy lost their respective matches.

While third seed Srikanth suffered a 21-14, 17-21, 21-23 loss to 13th seed Hu Yun of Hong Kong, Prannoy went down 16-21, 21-19, 18-21 to seventh seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark.