Macau open: Lakshya sen, Tharun Malepalli comes in Semis; Satwik Chirag Boog from | Badminton News – Times of India

India enjoyed mixed fortunes on the Macau open on Friday, with singles Shuttlers Lakshya Sen and Tharun Mannepalli who moved to the semi -final, while the men’s inubbels few satwikiraj rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffer an early exit. Tharun, who has been the surprise package of the tournament, continued his impressive form by beating the Chinese Hu Zhe’an, the current junior world champion, in a heavily fought three-game meeting.The 23-year-old Indian took the opening match comfortably, stumbled in the second, but kept his courage to win 21-12, 13-21, 21-18 and close a place in the last four. Earlier in the tournament, Tharun had top seeds Yiu from Hong Kong. He will now be confronted with Justin Hoh in the semi -final of Malaysia on Saturday, a player he defeated earlier this year on the Thailand Open. Lakshya Sen, the best singles player in India and an Olympic qualifying match in Paris, also booked his semi-final after a grim victory over Xuan Chen Zhu in China. Sen, in 17th place in the world, took the match 21-14, 18-21, 21-14 in just over an hour. This marks its deepest run in a BWF World Tour event this season. He will then be confronted in Alwi Farhan in Indonesia for a place in the final.

The Satwik and Chirag campaign, on the other hand, came to a halt in the pre-quarterfinals. The Indian duo, in ninth place in the world, lost a narrow match of three games to Choong Hon Jian and Muhammad Haikal in Malaysia. Despite the leader of 17-12 in the decision maker, the Indians were converted 21-14, 13-21, 22-20-Hun first defeat against the Malaysian couple.