Former world championships silver medallist shuttler Kidambi Srikanth continued with his dominating form to storm into the men’s singles semifinals of the Canada Open Super 300 badminton tournament with a straight-game victory over top seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei.
Srikanth, who had made it to the finals of the Malaysia Masters in May, got the better of World Number 6 Chen 21-18 21-9 in a 43-minute quarterfinal match on Friday night. Ranked World No. 49, Srikanth will clash with third seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan for a place in the final. The only contender left in the US $240,000 tournament, Srikanth has a 6-4 head-to-head record against Nishimoto. He had, however, lost to the Japanese shuttler in their last match at the 2023 World Championships.
Meanwhile, 2022 World Junior Championships silver medallist S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian played valiantly before succumbing to Nishimoto 15-21 21-5 17-21 in an intensive 79-minute quarterfinal. In women’s singles, Shriyanshi Valishetty’s impressive run came to an end when she lost to Denmark's Amalie Schulz.
Srikanth, who had won four titles in a breakthrough 2017 season, had a 4-6 record against Chen before this match, but he had defeated the top seed in their last two matches.
Srikanth started on a great note, racing to a 5-0 lead. The two were even at 16-16 in the opening game, but Chen took the next point to lead 17-16. It was then that Srikanth came into his own and won five of the next six points to win the game.
In the second game, Srikanth raced ahead from 4-4 to 11-6 at the interval and then to 19-7, winning the match with ease.
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