Lucknow: Top shuttlers Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu and national champion K Srikanth continued their rampaging run with contrasting victories to reach the semi-finals of the USD 120,000 India Grand Prix Gold tournament on Friday.
Saina, the London Olympics bronze medallist, was on course for her first title of the season when she registered a 21-15 21-15 victory over fifth seed Bellaetrix Manuputty of Indonesia in the women's singles quarter-finals on Friday. She will next take on sixth seed Xuan Deng of China on Saturday.
World championship bronze medallist, Sindhu too was on course for her first final appearance of the season as she took just 34 minutes to pack off Indonesia's seventh seed Hera Desi 21-11, 21-13.
She will now take on fourth seed Lindaweni Fanetri who had little trouble in packing off Arundhati Pantawane 21-10, 21-7 in another women's singles quarter-final match.
With all the top four seeds knocked out of the men's draw, Srikanth was the highest seed in action today and the rising shuttler survived a scare from 11th seed B Sai Praneeth before prevailing 21-18, 20-22, 21-12 in a hour and 12 minutes match.
The Thailand Grand Prix champion will now take on seventh seed HS Prannoy for a place in the final at the Babu Banarasi Das UP Badminton Academy here.
Prannoy, the 2010 Youth Olympics silver medallist, packed off giant killer Zulfadli Zulkiffli of Malaysia 21-19, 21-14.
Zulfadli had upset top seed and defending champion P Kashyap on Thursday but the Malaysian had no answer to the smashes of Prannoy.
The other semi-final will see Aditya Prakash take on 9th seed Xeu Song of China. Aditya got the better of Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin 21-19, 18-21, 21-16, while Song needed 50 minutes to end the run of Shubhankar Dey 21-18, 21-15.
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