Commonwealth Games 2022 Badminton Highlights: Sindhu, Lakshya, Satwik-Sairaj assure medals; Srikanth loses in semifinal

Yeo starting to move Sindhu around again after the Indian took a 19-14 lead and the latter is clearly not able to handle that. Ends up on all fours after she loses a second consecutive point that reduced her lead to three points. 

Sindhu certainly not moving at her best but Yeo is gifting quite a few points now. Unforced errors galore since she took that big lead before the interval and Sindhu seems to be on her way now. 

Sindhu leads at the interval. That Achilles certainly seems to be getting better now and adjacently, Yeo seems to have lost her concentration. Quite a few unforced errors from the Singaporean allows Sindhu to go on a run of six consecutive points.  

Sindhu still moving gingerly but she seems to have found a bit more fluidity, certainly getting her placement of shots right and stretching the Singaporean into making mistakes. That helps her level things up. 

This is quite stunning, Sindhu goes on to lose five consecutive points, hitting a back hand drop shot wide. She finally breaks the run in the next rally but Yeo makes it 9-5 with a cross court slice that Sindhu just not anywhere close to it. The Indian is not moving the way she normally does. 

Sindhu wins the first couple of points in a straightforward way, with Yeo wasting a review for some reason for an outside call off the second point. But Sindhu then seems reluctant to push off her left leg, remember that strapping on her Achilles', and loses her first point. Yeo fights back to lead 5-4 when Sindhu ended up hitting a rather straightforward low smash into the net. A quick exchange followed with Sindhu falling two points behing after finding the net again. 

The Indian double Olympic medallist has heavy strapping on her left Achilles' which was not there last evening. Wonder if that will be a cause for concern. She serves to start the match. 

Like Satwik and Chirag, Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly had faced their opponents for the day during the mixed team event and they fell to a pretty convincing defeat. They would be hoping to find a different gear today but the fact remains that a win for them would be regarded as an upset. 

India's ace men's doubles pair will be up against Chang Peng Soon and Tan Kian Meng of Malaysia. The two pairs had also faced each other during the mixed team finals, with the Indians losing a high octane match. 

The clear leader in India's badminton charge, Sindhu is up against another trailblazer for her country in Yeo Jia Min. Yeo is a former World No.1 and the first Singaporean in the junior or senior circuits to rise to the top of the rankings. Sindhu has Yeo twice in the past in the BWF world tour and won on both occasions. She also beat Yeo pretty quickly in the mixed team semi-finals between India and Singapore. 

India's boy wonder Lakshya Sen is up against Jia Heng Teh, popularly known as Jason Teh, of Singapore. Teh was part of the Singapore team that won bronze at the 2018 CWG and Lakshya is the clear favourite going into the match. Lakshya is ranked 10th while Teh is ranked 87th in the world. 

Srikanth would have been up against Singaporean reigning world champion Loh Kean Yew had it not been for his opponent for Sunday Ng Tze Yong beating him in the previous round. Ng had beaten Srikanth in quite a sensational men's singles tie between the two during the mixed team finals between India and Malaysia but Srikanth had beaten him before that in the Thomas Cup tie between the two teams earlier this year. 

India have been one of two dominant contingents in badminton at the CWG, as one would have expected, with the other being Malaysia. It is Malaysia who beat India in the final of the mixed team event and today, there are three Indians are facing Malaysian opponents today. 

The timings can change based on how long the previous matches go on the respective courts 

2.20pm Show Court: PV Sindhu vs Jia Min Yeo (Singapore)

3.10pm Court 2: Kidambi Srikanth vs Ng Tze Yong (Malaysia)

3.10pm Show Court: Lakshya Sen vs Jia Heng Teh (Singapore)

4pm Court 2: Gayatri Gopichand-Treesa Jolly vs Pearly Tan-Thinaah Muralitharan (Malaysia)

4.50pm Show Court: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty vs Chang Peng Soon-Tan Kian Meng (Malaysia)

The Indians in action today have practically sailed through much of the previous rounds of matches but it won't be a cakewalk for all of them from here on out. PV Sindhu might just breath easy considering she got her trickiest opponent out of the way on Saturday and she now has a realistic chance of upgrading her 2018 silver to a gold this year. What about the others? Well, we will be talking about all of them and more as we buildup to the badminton sems of the CWG. Stay tuned!