All England Open badminton: Sindhu enters semi-finals

Birmingham: Reigning world badminton champion P.V. Sindhu rallied to enter the women’s singles semi-finals of All England Open Championships here on Friday with a tough win over Japanese third seed Akane Yamaguchi.

In a quarter-final match, Sindhu beat Akane 16-21, 21-16, 21-19 in one hour and 16 minutes in the Super 1000 tournament.

In the semi-finals, fifth seed Sindhu will face sixth seed Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand.

Earlier, in a quarter-final match, Pornpawee beat unseeded Beiwen Zhang of the USA 7-21, 21-13, 21-9 in 38 minutes.

Also on Friday, India’s Lakshya Sen crashed out in the quarter-finals, losing to Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands 17-21, 21-16, 17-21. The match, which lasted 55 minutes, saw the end of Indian challenge in men’s singles.

Caljouw, who had beaten Sen once before, won the first set 21-17 in 17 minutes. He was leading 11-8 at one point and maintained it to go 1-0 up. The 19-year-old Sen then bounced back in the second game, opening up a lead of 11-6 and later sealing the second game 21-16 to stay alive in the contest.

World No. 36 Caljouw, however, won the last game 21-17 to seal the clash.

Sen had progressed to the men’s singles quarter-finals on Thursday after beating France’s Thomas Rouxel 21-18, 21-17 in 53 minutes.

Earlier, Indian women’s doubles pair Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy went down to the Netherlands’ Selena Piek and Cheryl Seinen in straight sets in the quarter-finals. Ashwini and Sikki lost 22-24, 12-21 in 39 minutes on Friday.

Ashwini and Sikki had beaten sixth seeds Gabriela Stoeva and Stefani Stoeva of Bulgaria 21-17, 21-10 in the Round of 16