Sindhu in Paris semis

Paris, October 28
PV Sindhu beat Chen Yufei of China in straight games to storm into the women’s singles semifinals of the French Super Series.
This is Sindhu’s first-ever semifinals appearance in the tournament. The Olympics silver medallist took just 41 minutes to beat world No. 10 Yufei 21-14 21-14 in the quarterfinals. By virtue of this win, the Indian avenged her opening round loss to the Chinese at the Denmark Open last week.
Sindhu, who had defeated Yufei at the World Championships, now leads the Chinese 3-2 in the overall head-to-head record.
Sindhu used her long reach and better court coverage to flummox her opponent and get the better of her with consummate ease. Yufei did not look her best today as she was undone by numerous unforced errors.
Sindhu, seeded second, enjoyed the upper hand in the duel, except for the first 10 points of the opening game when it was a neck-and-neck battle. But once Sindhu surged ahead 12-10, there was no looking back as she controlled the game with deft drop shots and down-the-line crosscourt smashes to race to 18-12 lead.
Yufei managed to grab two points but unforced errors cost her dearly as she pushed a drop shot wide to hand the Indian the first game in just 19 minutes. Sindhu, however, was slow to get off the blocks in the second game as Yufei took a 3-0 lead. But the Indian managed to claw her way back, courtesy unforced errors from the Chinese to draw level at 5-5. From there on, Sindhu controlled the proceedings to take an 11-7 lead at the break. The Indian then managed to pocket the second game in 22 minutes to wrap up the issue.
Easy for Prannoy
HS Prannoy defeated South Korea’s Jeon Hyeok Jin 21-16 21-16 to enter the men’s singles semifinal round. Earlier, Prannoy dumped Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Vittinghus in straight games to progress quarterfinals. Prannoy took just 31 minutes to see off Vittinghus 21-11 21-12. The Indian doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty notched up a stunning win (22-20 12-21 21-19) over Danish combo of Mads Conrad-Petersen and Mads Pieler Kolding. B Sai Praneeth lost to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto 13-21 17-21. Meanwhile, Olympics champion Chen Long lost to Anders Antonsen 21-15 16-21 16-21 in Round 16.