Star Indian women’s singles shuttler Unnati Hooda on Friday beat World No. 24 Lin Hsiang Ti of Chinese Taipei in straight games to move into the semifinals of the Hylo Open, even as Lakshya Sen and Ayush Shetty had to bid goodbye to Saarbrucken.
Unnati, who is coming off a Round of 16 finish at the French Open, won a close first game 22-20, but with the change of ends, she looked more dominant and cruised to a 21-13 win to book a berth in the semifinals.
Unnati is expected to take on top-seed Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia in the semis, an opponent whom she has never faced.
Unnati earlier had quarterfinal finishes at the BWF World Junior Championships, China Open and the German Open, a semifinal finish at the Taipei Open in May and a runner-up
finish at the Singapore International Challenge in February.
Lakshya, Ayush bow out
It was yet another disappointing outing for Lakshya Sen, who went down in three games to fourth seed Alex Lanier. The latter won the first game 21-17, but Lakshya came back brilliantly in the second to win it 21-14 and push the match to a decider.
But be it nerves or repeated faults, Lakshya kept playing catch-up Lanier in the third and went down 15-21. He was coming off a first-round exit at the French Open.
Ayush Shetty will be more disappointed with his performance, having gone down to a lower-ranked Kalle Koljonen of Finland. The former won a close first game 21-19, but Koljonen came back strongly to win the second 21-12.
The decider was a neck-to-neck battle and Ayush held match point, but he eventually lost 20-22 to the Finnish shuttler. He, too, was coming off a first-round exit at the French Open.
Later in the day, Kiran George will take on second seed Jonatan Christie of Indonesia, with the latter leading their H2H battle 1-0. Rakshitha Santhosh Ramraj will face the sixth seed, Line Christophersen, with the Danish shuttler having a 1-0 advantage over the Indian.
