Star shuttler Kidambi Srikanth and women’s doubles pair of Tressa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost their respective semifinal matches in contrasting fashion to end India’s challenge at the Hylo Open Super 300 tournament.
Srikanth, 2021 World championship bronze medallist who eliminated world no. 7 Jonatan Christie in the quarterfinals, looked inconsistent and went down to world No. 6 Anthony Ginting of Indonesia 18-21 15-21 in a match that lasted 38 minutes on Saturday night.
Earlier in the day, the doubles duo of Tressa and Gayatri conceded a 18-15 lead in the decider to lose to eighth-seed Thai sisters, Benyapa Aimsaard and Nuntakarn Aimsaard 21-17 14-211 18-21 in a gruelling contest lasting more than an hour.
In pursuit of his first title in five years, the Indian world no. 11 Srikanth put up a strong fight in the opening game and led by two points at the break.
But Ginting was also at his attacking best as the duo were locked 14-14 and then 17-17 before the Indonesian broke away in a superlative display to close out the first game.
An error-prone Srikanth found the going tough in the second game, while the Indonesian kept on his attacking display to take a five-point cushion at the break.
There was no looking back for Ginting from there on as the Indonesian registered his third consecutive win over Srikanth to take his head-to-head count to 4-2.
Srikanth had lost to Ginting at the All England Championships in the pre-quarterfinals in their last exchange.
In the women’s doubles quarters, Tressa and Gayatri took the opening game easily bagging five consecutive points but in the second game, the Thai pair made a good start and made it 6-6, courtesy couple of unforced errors from the Indians.
The Thai duo soon sharpened their game, and relied on attack and placement to go into the break with a three-point cushion.
The Thai sisters won the power battle in the rallies and soon bounced back in style.
In the decider, the Indian duo galloped to a 7-2 lead before entering the break at 11-7 following a smash winner from Gayatri. The Thai pair tried to narrow the gap but the Indian duo managed to keep their nose ahead till 18-15.
Tressa then committed some big errors to allow the Thai pair to grab two match points and convert it comfortably.
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