To the surprise of everyone, Japan Open quarter-finalists K Srikanth and H S Prannoy continued with their rampaging run by reaching the semifinals of the men's singles contention on the 3rd day of the 35th PSPB Inter Unit Badminton Tournament, where some exciting matches occurred on Wednesday.
Previously, fifth seed Prannoy had won against two top 15 players, Jan Jorgensen of Denmark and Wing Ki Wong of Hong Kong in the Japan Open. Subsequently, he hammered the fourth seeded Shreeyansh Jaiswal by 19-21 21-14 21-15 in a close quarterfinal competition.
Even Srikanth continued with his good form that began with the Indian Badminton League, where he registered a 21-15 21-6 win over unseeded Tarun Kona. Earlier, Kona had played with Ashwini Ponnappa in mixed doubles event in international circuit. No doubt, Tarun played well to thrash seventh seeded and former National champion Arvind Bhat by 20-22 21-11 21-13 in quarters.
In another closely fought pre-quarters match, Chetan Anand sneaked past Daniel Farid by 21-14 21-23 21-15 and crashed into the semifinals after Sai Praneeth allowed him a walkover in the quarters. Further, the fourth semifinalist is third seed Sourabh Verma, who got the better of sixth seed Subhankar Dey by 21-12 21-19. Next, Chetan will clash with Saurabh, while Prannoy will lock horns against Srikanth in the semifinals tomorrow.
In the women's singles event, top seed Arundhati Panthawane comfortably won over Maya Dasrat by 21-10 21-10, while fourth seed Trupti Murgunde lost to Riya Pillai by 13-21 17-21. Subsequently, Arundhati will face Riya tomorrow in last four. However, the other two seeds, P C Thulasi (3) and Tanvi Lad (2) comfortably won their matches to establish a semifinal contention.
In the men's doubles quarter-finals title, the top-seeded combo Pranaav Chopra along with Tarun Kona hammered Bijon Bannerjee and Amitabh Goswami by 21-0 21-9.
In the second quarter finals event, Hema Nagendre Babu along with Santhosh Ravuri trounced fourth seeded Arsalan and Daniel Farid by 21-11 21-13.
Remarkably, in women's doubles, Arathi Sara Sunil and Ashwani Ponnappa will clash with top seeds Aparna Balan and Prajakta Sawant in the finals.
