Dubai: India’s top men’s doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty assured a men’s doubles medal at the Badminton Asia Championships after 52 years after they beat Indonesia’s experienced duo Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan in the quarterfinals, here on Friday.
The Indian duo of Rankireddy and Shetty won by 21-11 21-12. They now face Chinese Taipei’s Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin in the last four encounters.
However, former world champion PV Sindhu crashed out of the Championships after losing to world No. 2 An Se Young in her women’s singles quarter-final match.
World No 11 Sindhu suffered her sixth straight defeat against the South Korean shuttler by going down 21-18, 5-21, 9-21. Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist, began well and won the first game despite trailing 13-16 at one stage. The Indian had never won a game against An Se Young in their previous five meetings.
An Se Young dominated the second game. In the third, Sindhu engaged in longer rallies but An Se Young proved tough to crack and ran away with the game convincingly.
At the last edition of the Asian championships held in Manila last year, Sindhu settled for bronze after losing to Akane Yamaguchi in the semi-finals. The 27-year old Sindhu also won a bronze in 2014.
In the men’s singles event, world No. 9 HS Prannoy also bowed out in the men’s singles quarterfinals after conceding his match midway against Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan. Prannoy was trailing 11-21, 9-13 when he retired due to an injury.
Meanwhile, India’s mixed doubles team of Rohan Kapoor-N Sikki Reddy also lost to the world No. 19 duo of Dejan Ferdinansyah-Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja from Indonesia 18-21, 21-19, 15-21 in the quarter-finals.
–IANS