While India’s top hope in women’s singles, P.V Sindhu made a premature exit, the men’s doubles combine of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty kept the Tricolour fluttering by reaching the semifinals of the India Open BWF Super 750 event here on Friday.

On a day on which India’s campaign in singles came to an end with the defeat of Sindhu in women’s singles and Kiran George in men’s, Asian Games gold medallists Satwik and Chirag stayed on course for their second consecutive final with straight games win over Korea’s Yong Jin and Kang Min Hyuk in the men’s doubles quarterfinals of the BWF World Tour Super 750 event at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall here.

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Satwik and Chirag were at their dominant best in their quarterfinal encounter against South Korea’s Yong Jin and Kang Min Hyuk, winning 21-10, 21-17 at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium here.

However, it was heartbreak for the other Indians in the fray with Sindhu going down 21-9, 19-21, 21-17 against fourth seed Gregoria Mariska Tunjung, the Paris Olympic Games bronze medallist, in women’s singles while Weng Hong Yang of China defeated Kiran 21-13, 21-19 in the men’s singles quarterfinals.

In the other matches, women’s singles top seed An Se Young of South Korea defeated Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min 21-11, 21-12 and Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand upset Chinese third seed Han Yue 21-17, 21-16. In the men’s singles quarterfinals, Paris Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen was made to work hard for a 21-19, 13-21, 21-8 victory over former world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore.

But it was the pairing of Satwik and Chirag that gave the sizeable crowd at the KD Jadhav Hall enough reasons to celebrate as they played a near-clinical match against the Koreans, who had upset the top seeds and world No. 1 Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the opening round. The Asian Games gold medallists raced to a 9-1 lead in the opening game and then controlled the proceedings to pocket the game in 18 minutes. The Koreas did put up a stronger fight in the second game the Indians were hardly under any pressure.

In the semifinal, Satwik and Chirag will face third seeds Sze Fei Goh and Nur Izzuddin of Indonesia.

The loss against Tunjung notwithstanding, there were a lot of positives to take home for Sindhu. The 29-year-old, who had been facing injuries since the Paris Olympics, struggled with her movement in the opening game but took the fight to her opponent once she found her range. Trailing 3-9 in the second game, Sindhu began pushing Tunjung to the back of the court thereby nullifying the sharpness of the Indonesian’s quick slice drops and keeping the shuttle long enough in play to force an error from her opponent.

She caught up with Tunjung at 9-9 and though both the players stayed neck-and-neck thereafter, Sindhu managed to take the match into a decider by forcing the fourth seed into taking more risks to try and win points.

The former champion continued with the same strategy in the decider and it looked like she could script an upset with both players locked at 17-17. Some brilliant stroke play from Tunjung and a wrong judgment from Sindhu ended up deciding the fate of the match which lasted an hour and two minutes. “I think it was 17-17 in the third game where some of my strokes were just too parallel and into her hand. If I had played a bit more back, maybe that would have been the difference,” said Sindhu, analysing what went wrong in the end.

The 29-year-old, who will next play the Indonesia Masters, was overall satisfied with the performance and looking forward to building on it. “There are a lot of positives to take from this tournament. The quarterfinal is not a bad result. But for me to improve, these are the matches I need to learn from,” she added.

In the men’s singles quarterfinals, Kiran George fought hard against Weng and even saved a match point in the second game but an error on a forehand drive ended his hopes of advancing any further in the competition.

Results:

Men’s singles:

Lee Cheuk Yiu (Hkg) bt 7-Chou Tien Chen (Tpe) 21-15, 21-8; 3-Viktor Axelsen (Den) bt Loh Kean Yew (Sin) 21-19, 13-21, 21-8; Weng Hong Yang (Chn) bt Kiran George (Ind) 21-13, 21-19;

Women’s singles:

1-An Se Young (Kor) bt Yeo Jia Min (Sin) 21-11, 21-12; 6-Tomoka Miyazaki (Jpn) bt 2-Wang Zhi Yi (Chn) 21-16 retd.; 8-Pornpawee Chochuwong (Tha) bt 3-Han Yue (Chn) 21-17, 21-16; 4-Gregoria Mariska Tunjung (Ina) bt PV Sindhu (Ind) 21-9, 19-21, 21-17

Men’s doubles:

5-Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik (Mas) bt Kittinupong Kedren/Dechapol Puavaranukroh (Tha) 21-18, 21-18; Kim Won Ho/Seo Seung Jae (Kor) bt 2-Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang (Chn) 12-21, 22-20, 23-21; 3-Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin (Mas) bt Fang-Chih Lee/Fang-Jen Lee (Tpe) 21-11, 21-17; 7-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty (Ind) bt Yong Jin/Kang Min Hyuk (Kor) 21-10, 21-17

Women’s doubles:

3-Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan (Mas) bt Yuki Fukushima/Mayu Matsumoto (Jpn) 21-18, 21-19; Kim Hye Jeong/Kong Hee Yong (Kor) bt Baek Ha Na/Lee So Hee (Kor) 21-23, 21-19, 21-19; 4-Li Yi Jing/Luo Xu Min (Chn) bt 6-Yeung Nga Ting/Yeung Pui Lam (Hkg) 21-12, 21-17; Arisa Igarashi/Ayako Sukuramoto (Jpn) bt 1-Liu Sheng Shu/Tan Ning (Chn) 21-15, 21-19

Mixed doubles:

3-Chen Tang Jie/Toh Ee Wei (Mas) bt Ruttanapak Oupthong/Jhenicha Sudjaipraparat (Tha) 21-16, 21-17; 4-Goh Soon Huat/Lai Shevon Jemie (Mas) bt Yang Po-Hsuan/Hu Ling Fang (Tpe) 21-11, 21-15; 2-Jiang Zhen Bang/Wei Ya Xin (Chn) bt 7-Guo Xin Wa/Chen Fang Hui (Chn) 21-14, 18-21, 21-11; Thom Gicquel/Delphine Delrue (Fra) bt Hiroki Midorikawa/Natsu Saito (Jpn) 21-16, 21-18.