Swiss Grand Prix Gold: Sindhu loses, India crash out of semifinals

Basel (Switzerland): Top Indian shuttlers P.V. Sindhu and Parupalli Kashyap suffered heartbreaking defeats in the semifinals, while Saina Nehwal was knocked out at the last-eight stage as India’s campaign at the Swiss Grand Prix Gold tournament came to an end here on Saturday.

World championship bronze medallist Sindhu, who had stunned recently-crowned All England champion Shixian Wang in the quarterfinals, could not tame fast emerging Chinese shuttler Sun Yu in the semifinals.

The 18-year-old Hyderabadi squandered a first game advantage to go down 21-18, 12-21, 19-21 to Sun in a 79-minute women’s singles match. This is Sindhu’s third loss to Sun — she had last lost to the Chinese at the All England recently.

Kashyap, seeded third, slumped to a 17-21, 11-21 loss to World No.27 China’s Houwei Tian in a 42-minute match. Kashyap had booked the semifinal berth with a hard-fought 21-15, 21-23, 21-18 win over sixth seed Tien Chen Chou of Chinese Taipei late on Friday. However, Olympic bronze medallist Saina had a tough time dealing with the world number three Yihan Wang, slipping to a 17-21, 12-21 loss — her seventh defeat to the Chinese, in a 38-minute match.

Sindhu was leading 8-4 early on but she allowed Sun to open up a slender 12-10 lead midway. However, a five-point burst helped the Indian to surge ahead and go one-up. Sun, however, regrouped herself quickly and didn’t allow Sindhu to apply her tactics and lead right from the start to slowly and steadily take the game, and eventually the match, away from the Indian.