Indian men, eves reach doubles semis

The top seeded pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas had to fight hard before getting past Indonesian pair of Wifqi Windarto and Afiat Yuris Wirawan 21-16, 20-22, 21-17 in the quarterfinals of the men’s doubles.

They will face Malaysians third-seeds Teik Chai Gan and Bin Shen Tan for a place in the final. In women’s doubles, Aparna Balan and Shruti Kurian beat Kiwi pair of Michelle KY Chan and Rachel Hindley 21-7, 21-14 for a place in the last-four where they will take on top-seed Tsz Ka Chan and Ying Suet Tse of Hong Kong.

Aparna, though failed to make it a double as she and partner Arun Vishnu went down 14-21, 11-21 to Tontowi Ahmad and Richi Puspita Dilli of Indonesia in mixed doubles quarters. The other Indian men’s doubles pair of Akshay Dewalkar and Jishnu Sanyal went down 8-21, 19-21 to fourth-seed Hirokatsu Hashimoto and Noriyasu Hirata of Japan in the quarterfinals. Anjali Kalita and Jyotshna Polavarapu lost 14-21, 18-21 to the Vietnam-Czech Republic duo of Nguyen Nhung Le Ngoc and Kristina Ludikova in the other last-eight women’s doubles encounter. India’s campaign in men’s singles also ended in the quarterfinal stage with seventh-seed Anand Pawar losing 17-21, 21-11, 12-21 to Kazushi Yamada of Japan.