New Delhi: India’s men’s and women’s doubles pairs reached the semifinals of the New Zealand Open Grand Prix badminton tournament in Auckland on Thursday.
The top-seeded pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas had to fight hard before getting past Indonesian pair of Wifqi Windarto and Afiat Yuris Wirawan 21-16, 20-22, 21-17. They will face Malaysian third seeds Teik Chai Gan and Bin Shen Tan.
In women’s doubles, Aparna Balan and Shruti Kurian beat the New Zealand pair of Michelle K.Y. Chan and Rachel Hindley 21-7, 21-14 and will take on top seeds Tsz Ka Chan and Ying Suet Tse of Hong Kong.
However, Aparna Arun Vishnu lost 21-14, 21-11 to Tontowi Ahmad and Richi Puspita Dilli of Indonesia in the mixed doubles quarterfinals.
The other Indian men’s doubles pair of Akshay Dewalkar and Jishnu Sanyal went down 21-8, 21-19 to fourth-seeded Hirokatsu Hashimoto and Noriyasu Hirata of Japan in the quarterfinals.
Anjali Kalita and Jyotshna Polavarapu lost 21-14, 21-18 to the Vietnam-Czech Republic duo of Nguyen Nhung Le Ngoc and Kristina Ludikova in the other last-eight women’s doubles encounter.
India’s campaign in men’s singles also ended in the quarterfinal stage with seventh-seeded Anand Pawar losing 21-17, 11-21, 21-12 to Kazushi Yamada of Japan.
