Basel: Top Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Parupalli Kashyap suffered heartbreaking defeats in the semifinals, while Saina Nehwal was knocked out at the last-eight stage as India’s campaign in the Swiss Grand Prix Gold tournament came to an end here on Saturday.
World championship bronze medallist Sindhu, who had stunned recently-crowned All England Champion Shixian Wang in the quarterfinals, could not tame the fast emerging Chinese shuttler Sun Yu in the semis.
The 18-year-old Indian squandered a first game advantage to go down 21-18, 12-21, 19-21 to Sun in a 79-minute women’s singles match.
In the decider, Sun continued her domination and led 11-6 at the interval. Sindhu grabbed three points on the trot to narrow the gap but the Chinese maintained her distance and reached 19-14.
Sindhu gave a gallant fight and repaired the deficit to move to 19-20 but Sun had the last laugh in the end.
This is Sindhu’s third loss to Sun as she had last lost to the Chinese in the All England recently.
Kashyap, seeded third, also slumped to a 17-21, 11-21 loss to world number 27 China’s Houwei Tian in a 42-minute men’s singles match.
Kashyap had booked the semifinal berth with a hard-fought 21-15, 21-23, 21-18 win over sixth seed Tien Chen Chou of Taiwan on Friday night.
However, Olympic bronze medallist Saina had a tough time dealing with the world number three Yihan Wang as she slipped to a 17-21, 12-21, her seventh defeat to the Chinese, in a 38-minute match.
Sixth seed Saina, however, who will turn 24 on Monday, could not gift herself a birthday gift as top seed Yihan once again stamped her authority on the Indian.
In the men’s singles quarterfinals, Kashyap ran away with the opening game in a flash but Tien came back strongly in the next as the Indian couldn’t press home the slender 7-4, 16-14 advantages.
However, in the decider, Kashyap wriggled out from an initial 3-5 disadvantage and held his fort until the end to enter his first semifinal of 2014. (PTI)
