Indian ace Saina Nehwal on Friday registered a thrilling three-time win over Iris Wang of USA to advance to the women’s singles semi-finals of the Orleans Masters Badminton Tournament in Paris. It is the first semi-final for the world in two years. 20 Saina, who is desperate to accumulate ranking points for a place in her fourth Olympics at the Tokyo Games. Her last semi-final appearance was in the January 2019 Indonesia Masters 500 tournament that she won.
The fourth-seeded Indian, who pulled out of the All England Championship last week due to an injury, had to dig deep to win the world 21–19 17–21 21–19. 36 Wang in a grueling quarterfinal match that lasted exactly one hour.
The Danish Olympic bronze medalist will take on either Denmark’s line Kristoffersen or compatriot Ira Sharma, who are a part of the BWF’s revised Olympic qualification events, to make it to the finals in the Super 100 event.
Commonwealth Games bronze medalists Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy also entered the final four stages of the women’s doubles competition, beating eighth seeded England’s Chloe Burch and Lauren Smith 21-14 21-18.
World no. The 25 Indian pair will face top seeded Jongkolpan Kitatharkul and Ravinda Prongzai in Thailand.
The Indian men’s doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnu Vardhan Gaur Panjala left the world behind. The 47 French pair of Kristo Popov and Toma Jr. Popov won the semi-finals 21-17 10-21 22-20 in one hour and three minutes.
The undivided Indian pair will take on England’s Callum Hemming and Steven Stallwood for a spot in the final to be played on Saturday.
The English pair had ended the campaign of Indian seventh seed MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila 21-19 18-21 23-21 in the quarter-finals.
Saina completed a compact game with an 11–5 lead in the first game, but Wang narrowed the gap to 13–15 after the break. The American led by five straight points to take an 18–16 lead.
However, Saina sealed the opening game with an opening four points.
Promoted
The second game was a close affair as both players fought hard before Saina took a 13–11 lead in mid-game, but the determined Wang pushed ahead and came back into the competition.
In the decider, Saina led 6-4 and then 12-8. Wang lowered his neck, yet the Indian put his nose forward. Saina wasted two matches before winning the match, scoring three match points.
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