India’s double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu extended her impressive record against Busanan Ongbamrungphan and sailed into the women’s singles semifinals at French Open Super 750 with a straight-game win over the Thailand shuttler on Friday.
Sindhu, seeded third, scripted a convincing 21-14 21-14 win over eighth seeded in 38 minutes to extend her dominating head-to-head record against the Thai to 14-1. The 26-year-old from Hyderabad had beaten Busanan at Denmark Open also, last week.
Sindhu is the last Indian remaining in action in Paris as Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty lost their respective quarterfinal matches.
Sindhu, the reigning world champion, defeated Denmark’s Line Christophersen, ranked 24th in the world 21-19 21-9 on late Thursday night to enter the quarters.
The world number seven Indian will now cross swords with Japan’s world number 15 Sayaka Takahashi in the last four on Saturday. The left-hander from Japan has been in good form recently and defeated second seed Ratchanok Intanon (not at her best in terms of fitness yet) in straight games on Friday to reach the semifinals. The other semifinals will see Akane Yamaguchi and An Seyoung go up against each other in a repeat of Denmark Open final.
However, young Lakshya Sen’s fine run ended in the men’s singles quarterfinal after he lost 17-21 15-21 to Heo Kwanghee in 43 minutes. The Korean has been in the news for his two huge wins against Kento Momota recently, the most notable coming at the Tokyo Games.
The 20-year-old from Almora had notched up a comfortable straight game win over Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew to grab a place in the last eight. But with the draw opening up in the absence of Viktor Axelsen and Lee Zii Jia in his quarter, Sen had a big chance to reach the final four. He could not make the most of it.
Later in the evening, Satwik and Chirag were involved in a thriller against Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik. The Malaysians dropped the first game but bounced back to win 18-21 21-18 21-17 in 61 minutes. The fifth seeds from India started brilliantly, and kept in touching distance in both the second and third games but the fourth seeds held their nerves in the end.
It was a clinical display by Sindhu in the quarterfinals as she zoomed to a 5-1 lead initially before moving to 11-6 at the break. She continued in the same vein after the interval, jumping to 18-7 to eventually pocket the opening game comfortably.
The second game turned out to be a close battle for a while with Sindhu and Busanan engaging in a fierce battle. However, Sindhu broke off at 8-8 to grab a two-point advantage at the interval.
Sindhu once again stepped up after the break to climb to 16-10 and 20-12. Busanan saved two match points before Sindhu sealed the contest.
On Thursday, Satwik and Chirag beat MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila 15-21 21-10 21-19 in an all-Indian clash to reach the quarterfinals. Men’s singles player Sourabh Verma, however, bowed out of the competition after losing 12-21 9-21 to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto in the second round.
(With PTI inputs)
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