India will have two singles medallists at the badminton world championships for the first time ever as Saina Nehwal joined PV Sindhu in the semi-finals in Glasgow. Nehwal booked a spot in the last four after a three-game win over 16th seed Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland on Friday.
Battling a vociferous home crowd cheering on the local girl and what seemed like cramps towards the latter stages, Nehwal needed an hour and 14 minutes to win the match 21-19, 18-21, 21-15.
However, the 12th seeded Indian can take some solace from the fact that her semi-final opponent on Saturday, Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara, will also be reeling from a marathon one-hour-33-minute quarter-final match against Rio Olympics gold medallist Carolina Marin. Okuhara won the match 21-18, 14-21, 21-15.
Nehwal started the match well and opened up a 6-2 lead in the first game before Gilmour won six straight points to go into the interval leading 11-8. Gilmour used the jump smash to good effect against the higher-ranked Indian and extended her lead to 17-14, before Nehwal fought back to make it 18-18. The home crowd was egging Gilmour on at this point but Nehwal held her nerve to take the first game 21-19.
Both players were neck and neck to begin the second game but the pace of the match slowed down, as Nehwal attempted to take Gilmour’s jump smash out of the equation. It did not work as Gilmour opened up a lead and maintained it till the end to win the second game 21-18.
At the interval, Nehwal’s coach Vimal Kumar was heard telling her to grab an early lead in the third game. The former world No 1 did just that as she won five straight points to begin the deciding game. That became 11-5 at the break and Nehwal just needed to play smartly from thereon to win the match.
A deceptive shot from Gilmour floored Nehwal midway through the game and she was seen stretching as it progressed, but there weren’t to be any more twists in the match as the Indian closed out the game 21-14, much to the disappointment of the home crowd.
Earlier in the day, world No 4 PV Sindhu booked her place in the semis with a facile straight-games victory over fifth seed Sun Yu of China. Srikanth Kidambi, however, could not get past world No 1 Son Wan Ho in the men’s singles draw, as the Indian lost in straight games.