India’s Kidambi Srikanth made his way into the semi-finals of the 2024 Swiss Open Super 300 with a convincing win in the quarter-finals against Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei.
Having endured a tough run in the World Tour so far this year, Srikanth entered his first semi-final of the season as he went past the world No 34 shuttler 21-13, 21-14 in straight games.
The former world No 1 never looked in any trouble as he raced to an 11-5 lead at the first mid-game interval. There was no looking back as the Indian continued to control the pace of the game and kept things tight to wrap up the match in 35 minutes.
With his 2024 Paris Olympics qualification already in doldrums and the Badminton Association of India set to select the 2024 Thomas Cup team soon, the semi-final appearance in Basel could not have come at a better time for Srikanth.
Srikanth will now face Lin Chun-Yi of Chinese Taipei in the semi-final on Saturday.
Treesa-Gayatri, Priyanshu exit
Earlier in the day, the Indian women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand 14-21, 14-21 fell to a straight games loss to Australia’s Setyana Mapasa and Angela Yu.
After an early exit at the All England Open last week, Treesa-Gayatri looked far from their best against a lower-ranked Mapasa-Yu.
The match slipped away rather rapidly from the eighth seeded Indians as Mapasa-Yu kept their defence solid and made most of their chances to move into the semi-finals in 35 minutes.
Later, men’s singles shuttler Priyanshu Rajawat went down 15-21, 19-21 to the fifth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Tapiei.
Rajawat, who enjoyed a good couple of victories in the tournament in earlier rounds, started off well but soon found himself trailing 10-15 in the first game.
The Indian soon surrendered it 15-21 before opening up an 11-7 lead in the second game. The joy, however, was shortlived for Rajawat as he kept committing multiple errors to eventually concede the match in 43 minutes.
Meanwhile, Kiran George also bowed out from the men’s singles quarter-finals as he suffered a 23-21, 17-21, 15-21 loss to the more experienced Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke in an hour and 14 minutes.
