Basel:
Top seed Kidambi Srikanth stormed into the semifinals of the USD 120,000 Swiss Grand Prix Gold badminton championship after a straight-game win over Takuma Ueda of Japan in a one-sided men’s singles quarterfinal match here today.
Srikanth beat his eight seeded Japanese opponent 21-11 21-12 in just 31 minutes. The world number four Indian led his opponent throughout the match and the Japanese never got any chance of a fightback at the St Jakobshalle stadium.
The beginning of the match saw both players tied at 2-2 score but from then onwards Srikanth raced ahead to leave behind his opponent to take the first game 21-11.
The script was the same in the second game also with both players tied at 2-2 before the 22-year-old Indian went into a cruise mode to pocket the match easily.
Earlier in the pre-quarterfinal match last night, Srikanth suffered a scare before prevailing over Denmark’s Emil Holst 14-21 21-15 21-18 in a battle that lasted one hour and seven minutes.
It was curtains for 12th seed B Sai Praneeth after the Indian went down to seventh seed Hsu Jen Hao of Chinese Taipei 18-21 12-21 in another pre-quarterfinal match.
