Top seed Achanta Sharath Kamal laboured to the semi-finals of the men's singles in the NCC Indian Open ITTF Pro Tour tournament with a hard-earned win over Young Sik Jung of Korea in Delhi on Saturday.
Sharath defeated Sik Jung 8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 7-11, 11-8, 12-10 in the quarter-finals at the Yamuna Sports Complex in Delhi.
The Indian ace now meets the tournament's top seed, Dimitrij Ovtcharov of Germany, in Sunday's semi-finals.
Earlier, Sharath made it to the quarter-finals defeating German paddler Patrick Baum 13-11, 11-13, 11-7, 8-11, 8-11, 11-5, 11-9 in a close finish.
In the men's doubles, Sharath and Subhajit Saha defeated countrymen Harmeet Desai and Devesh Karia 11-8, 11-8, 5-11, 10-12, 11-4, 11-8 to secure a berth in the semi-finals.
They now meet the Korean pair of Sang Su Lee and Hyun Deok Seo, who too defeated their countrymen Young Sik Jung and Min Seok Kim 12-10, 11-5, 10-12, 11-9, 11-9.
In another important semi-final clash, Ning Gao and Zi Yang of Singapore will face Chinese Taipei's Sheng-Sheng Huang and Chih-Chi Wu.
In the women's singles event, Yi-Hua Huang of Chinese Taipei defeated Singapore's Beibei Sun 11-7, 11-6, 11-6, 11-9 to enter the last-four stage.
The other semi-finalist is Mengyu Yu of Singapore, who defeated Mi Soon Kang of Korea in straight sets 11-6, 11-7, 11-7, 17-15.
The tournament is being held as a test event for the Commonwealth Games in October.
Over a hundred players from 13 nations are participating in the five-day event.
