Badminton C’ship: Sindhu progresses to semi-finals

Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu sailed into the Semi-finalsof the women’s singles at the 83rd Senior National Badminton Championship inGuwahati on Thursday.

 She defeated Riya Mookherjee 21-16, 21-7 in her quartersclash. Earlier in the day, Sindhu defeated Malvika Bansod of Nagpur 21-11,21-13 in the pre-quarterfinals. Sindhu along with 6 other women shuttlers weregiven direct entry in the singles pre-quarterfinals after a super draw wasconducted last night.

Top seed Sameer Verma, playing the next match at the AssamBadminton Academy courts, conceded a men’s singles encounter against AryamannTandon midway at 21-16,  1-8 after aggravating a achilles heelproblem.

Three other pre-quarterfinals involving  Saina Nehwal,Parupalli Kashyap and B Sai Praneeth, were rescheduled to the evening sessionafter Saina Nehwal refused to play due to the uneven surface of thecourt.

In men’s doubles, top seeds Arjun MR and Shlok Ramchandran andthe pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Chirag Shetty entered thesemi-finals.

Also entering the semi-finals were the duo of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla and the pair of  Krishna Prasad G and Dhruv Kapila.