PV Sindhu was knocked out in the quarterfinals after a straight-game defeat, while Lakshya Sen advanced to the last four of the US Open Super 300 badminton tournament.
In the women’s singles match, China’s 24-year-old Gao Fang Jie beat third-seeded Sindhu, who is ranked 12th in the world, 20-22, 13-21. In the men’s singles final on Friday night, all-Indian Lakshya beat S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian 21-10, 21-17.
In the semifinals, Lakshya will compete against China’s Li Shi Feng, the second seed. Against Feng, the Indian has a 5-3 win-loss record.
Olympic medallist Sindhu seemed to be battling hard against her Chinese opponent, who is ranked 36th in the world, but the Indian’s failure to win rallies proved to be crucial in the opening game.
Sindhu was totally outmatched in the second set as Fang Jie boosted her game and offered the Indian little room to approach the net and play her drop shots.
Sindhu defeated Korea’s Sung Shuo Yun to advance to the quarterfinals.
Third seed Lakshya comfortably defeated young 19-year-old Sankar Muthusamy from Chennai in an all-Indian affair.
Lakshya was incredibly comfortable in his rallies and it was shown in the final match statistics when he won 42 rallies against Sankar Muthusamy’s 27 in a 38-minute match.