Malaysia Masters: Sindhu, Prannoy progress; Srikanth out

KUALA LUMPUR: PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy advanced to the women’s and men’s singles semi-finals of the Malaysia Masters Super 500 tournament with hard-fought wins over their respective opponents here on Friday.

While Sindhu, seeded sixth and ranked 13 in the world, defeated Yi Man Zhang of China 21-16, 13-21, 22-20 in the quarter-final stage, Prannoy earned a 25-23, 18-21, 21-13 victory over Kenta Nishimoto of Japan.

In the last-four phase, Sindhu will face World No.9 Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia, who got the better of Yi Zhi Wang from China 21-18, 22-20.

World No.9 Prannoy will take on Christian Adinata after the Indonesian qualifier, ranked 57, beat Kidambi Srikanth 16-21, 21-16, 21-11 in another quarter-final.

In the Sindhu-Zhang match, the first game was an intriguing one. Sindhu found herself on the back foot as she trailed 0-5, but made a fine recovery to level the score at 10-all. After that, Sindhu led all through and clinched the opener 21-16.

In the second game, Zhang learnt her lessons and did not allow Sindhu to make a comeback. After the score was locked at two points each, the Chinese moved ahead and maintained her supremacy to level the match at one-all.

The decider was closely contested throughout and could have gone either way. After the scorecard read 17-all, Sindhu notched up three successive points to secure two match points. While Zhang saved each one of them, Sindhu ultimately held her nerve to clinch the next two points and a semi-final berth.

In men’s singles, Prannoy found himself in a tough tussle with Nishimoto in the first game as the score was level at 12-all. The two did not give each other an inch before the Indian edged out the Japanese 25-23 in the opener.

The second game followed a similar pattern, but it was Nishimoto who took the initiative and marched to a 17-11 lead after the players were locked at nine-all. Prannoy fought back to reduce the gap, but could not prevent his rival from taking the match into a decider.

The third game turned out to be a one-sided affair in favour of Prannoy as the Indian outplayed his opponent from start to finish to progress to the next round.