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Saina Nehwal enters semis, Kidambi Srikanth exits Badminton Asia Championships
While Saina Nehwal progressed to the semis, Kidambi Srikanth lost in straight games in the quarterfinals at the Badminton Asia Championships.
It was a day of contrasting fortunes for Indian shuttlers. While Saina Nehwal earned a comprehensive straight games victory to enter the women’s singles semi-finals, Kidambi Srikanth lost his men’s singles quarterfinal to exit the Badminton Asia Championships taking place in Wuhan on Friday.
Saina took just 43 minutes to beat South Korean Lee Jang Mi 21-15, 21-13 and advance to the last four where she will take on the winner of the match between Chinese Taipei top seed Tai Tzu Ying and Chinese eighth seed He Bingjiao. This was World No.12 Saina’s first ever contest against the South Korean.
Earlier, Malaysian legend Lee Chong Wei came out with his best to defeat India’s rising star Srikanth in straight games.
The former champion took just 31 minutes to finish the challenge 21-12, 21-15 at the Wuhan Sports Center. This was the three-time Olympic silver medallist’s fifth victory in as many meetings against the World No.5 Indian.
However, Srikanth had defeated Lee Chong Wei in the mixed team event at the recently held Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.
But in the individual events the Malaysian came out on top to eventually become the champion for the third time.
PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy will play their matches later in the day.
