Defending Champion India faces Thailand in their Thomas Cup Opener.
While the Thomas Cup is the world badminton team championship for men, the Uber Cup is the women’s version. Both championships are held simultaneously biannually.
Kidambi Srikanth kept Indian hopes alive as he overwhelmed Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei in straight games to storm into the singles semi-finals at the Swiss Open badminton tournament at the St Jakobshalle arena in Basel, Switzerland.
However, Priyanshu Rajawat and Kiran George bowed out in the quarter-finals.
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Srikanth secured a comfortable 21-10, 21-14 victory over world No. 34 Chia Hao Lee to qualify for his first semi-final on the BWF World Tour since November 2022.
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He made the top four at the Hylo Open two years back before losing to Anthony Sinisuka Ginting.
The former world No. 1 Indian hardly had to break a sweat in and wrapped up the encounter in 35 minutes.
Srikanth, who won the Swiss Open in 2015, will now face world No. 22 Lin Chun Yi of Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals.
With his Paris Olympics qualification still hanging in the balance and the Indian team to take part in the Thomas Cup set to be selected soon, this win at the Swiss Open will make a compelling case for him.
For Priyanshu Rajawat and Kiran George, however, their Swiss Open campaigns came to an end in the quarter-finals. Rajawat went down 15-21, 19-21 at the hands of fifth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei.
The 22-year-old Rajawat started the match well but ended up losing in straight games inside 43 minutes.
Similarly, Kiran George also bowed out after suffering a 23-21, 17-21, 15-21 loss to Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke in an hour and 14 minutes.
Earlier in the day, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand were knocked out of the women’s doubles category after a 21-14, 21-14 straight games loss to Setyana Mapasa and Angela Yu of Australia.
Treesa and Gayatri looked far from comfortable against their lower-ranked opponents and the quarter-final exit in Switzerland follows their early exit from the All England Open last week.
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