Super Sindhu shocks Shixian to march into semifinals

Producing yet another emphatic performance, Indian giant slayer P V Sindhu on Friday stunned the recently-crowned All England champion Shixian Wang to breeze into the semifinals even as ace Saina Nehwal bit the dust at the $125,000 Swiss Grand Prix Gold here.

In the men’s singles, Parupalli Kashyap also booked a semifinal berth with a hard-fought victory over sixth seed Tien Chen Chou of Chinese Taipei.

Seventh-seeded Sindhu played a dominating game to assert her supremacy over two-time All England Champion with a 21-17, 21-15 win in a 45-minute match to set up a semifinal clash with another fast emerging Chinese Sun Yu.

It was Sindu’s third win over Shixian in as many matches. Last year she had humbled the Chinese at the quarterfinal stage of World Championships. However, Olympic bronze medallist Saina had a tough time dealing with the World No 3 Yihan Wang as she slipped to a 17-21, 2-21 loss, her seventh defeat to a Chinese, in a 38-minute match.

Kashyap, meanwhile, took an hour and 14 minutes to edge past Tien 21-15, 21-23 21-18 -- his second win against the Taiwanese. Kashyap faces World No 27 Houwei Tian of China in the semifinals.

World No 9 Sindhu showed once again why she is considered to be India’s next big badminton sensation as she produced a beautifully controlled and carefully-paced game to keep Shixian at bay through out the last-eight match.

The third seed Chinese did fight hard but Sindhu was always on guard and marched ahead everytime Shixian tried to claw her way back.  In the first game, Sindhu broke off at 12-12 and in the second game, the Indian never allowed Shixian to grab the lead and from 16-15 the Indian reeled off five straight points to seal her place in the semifinals against Sun.

The World Championship bronze medallist, however, have to be careful against Sun in her revenge attempt as it was the Chinese who had sent her crashing in the opening round of the All England Champion. The duo are tied 2-2 in head-to-head record. Sixth seed Saina, who will turn 24 on Monday, could not gift herself a birthday gift as top seed Yihan once again stamped her authority on the Indian.