BWF World Championships | PV Sindhu advances to final, B Sai Praneeth ousted

After Sindhu got the better of the formidable Tai Tzu Ying in the quarter-final, people had very little doubt that Chen Yufei would be a problem for the Indian shuttler. And she started off in a similar manner right from the go. Yufei, who defeated Mia Blichfeldt in the last round, was no competition for the Indian whose power play was way too much for the feeble looking Chinese.

Sindhu went into the break with a massive eight-point break with Yufei already looking at the next game to make any sort of impact. The Chinese could add only four more points after the break as Sindhu raced to a 21-7 win. The second game, although seeing Yufei showing a bit more intent, was pretty similar with Sindhu taking points almost at will. Yufei’s unforced errors made things further easy for Sindhu who won it 21-14. She would face either Ratchanon Intanon or Nozomi Okuhara.

A more competitive and, more importantly, unpredictable clash was B Sai Praneeth taking on Kento Momota in the semis. The Indian shuttler had blanked Anthony Ginting and Jonathan Christie in his previous two matches and had all the expectations of pulling off an upset against the Japanese World No.1.

However, Momota proved to be too good for the 16th seed. After he took his time to get into the groove in  the first game having a slim one-point lead at the break, he allowed Praneeth to take just three points after that in the first game, winning it 21-13. The second game was even more dominant from him as he downed the Indian 21-8, finishing the match in 42 minutes.