Denmark Open | Kidambi Srikanth enters semis; Saina Nehwal, HS Prannoy crash out of tournament

10/21/2017

The day was saved by Kidambi Srikanth for the Indians at the Denmark Open Superseries Premier as he beat the world champion Viktor Axelsen in a hard-fought contest. On the other hand, Saina Nehwal and HS Prannoy lost to Akane Yamaguchi and Son Wan-Ho respectively in the quarter-final matches.

Kidambi Srikanth registered a win in the quarterfinals yesterday and managed to enter the semifinals by defeating World No.1 local player Viktor Axelsen 14-21, 22-20, 21-7 in 55 minutes. But the game wasn't in the favour of Srikanth initially as he lost the first game relatively quickly. However, he succeeded in turning the table by winning the tightly contested second game 22-20. In the third game, Srikanth did not give a chance to the Dane and won the game 21-7, thereby, booking a place in the semi-finals of the men's singles event.

In the women's singles match, Saina Nehwal lost 10-21, 13-21 to the defending champion Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in a mere 29-minute. The Japanese kept winning consecutive points and pushed Saina on the backfoot from the beginning, which led to a score of 11-6 at the mid-game break before wrapping up the game with 21-10. The second game was tighter in comparison as points were being exchanged till the break with score being 10-11. But after the break, Yamaguchi changed the tempo and raced to 20-12 in quick time. Saina just managed to save one match-point before losing the game 13-21.

With Saina's defeat, the Indian campaign in the women's singles event came to an end as the second seed PV Sindhu already bowed out in the first round when she lost the game to China's Chen Yufei.

Moreover, HS Prannoy was defeated by former World No.1 Son Wan-Ho of South Korea 13-21, 18-21. Prannoy lost the first game quite easily, after which, he gave a tough fight to Wan-Ho in the second one. However, that was not enough to win the game as he lost the tie in straight games.

With both Saina and Prannoy bowing out, Srikanth is now the only Indian player left in the tournament.