Former Commonwealth Games gold medallist Parupalli Kashyap saved a match point before getting the better of Frenchman Lucas Claerbout while national champion Sourabh Verma’s was knocked out at the quarter-final stage of the Canada Open Super 100 badminton tournament in Calgary on Friday.
The 32-year-old Kashyap struggled in the opening game but found his rhythm at the start of the second game to stage a remarkable comeback and beat the unseeded Calerbout 12-21, 23-21, 24-22 in an hour and 16 minutes.
It was clearly a topsy-turvy encounter as the Indian wasted two game points in the second game and was trailing 12-16 in the decider before winning eight of the next 10 points to earn two match points. Claerbout not only saved those two points and even the third thereafter and earned a match point of his own before Kashyap wrapped up the match on the fourth attempt.
In the semi-finals, Kashyap will now face Taipei’s Wang Tzu Wei. The fourth seed defeated Heo Kwang Hee of Korea 21-12, 21-11 in the other quarter-finals.
Later in the day, Verma was no match to China’s Li Shi Feng as he went down 21-15, 21-11.