IAS officer Suhas Yathiraj reaches final of badminton singles SL4 at Tokyo Paralympics
Suhas Yathiraj, the district magistrate of Gautam Buddha Nagar, reached the final of badminton men's singles SL4 event at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. The 38-year-old defeated Indonesia's Fredy Setiawan 21-9, 21-15 to assure India of a 15th medal at the Tokyo edition.
Suhas took 31 minutes to wrap up the semifinal.
The world no.3 had booked a berth in the semifinal with a 21-6 21-12 victory over Indonesia's Hary Susanto.
Suhas will now face World No.1 Lucas Mazur of France, who defeated another Indian Tarun Dhillon in a hard-fought semifinal. In the match which lasted an hour and three minutes, Mazur prevailed 21-16, 16-21, 21-18.
Mazur had defeated Suhas in the group game on Friday and the Indian will be aiming to defy the odds when he meets the French in the gold medal match on September 5.
Earlier, Pramod Bhagat had also reached the final of the badminton SL3 event, defeating Japan's Daisuke Fujihara 21-11, 21-16.
Manoj Bhagat, another Indian in the second semifinal in the SL3 event, couldn't get into any sort of rhythm against second seeded Bethell, going down 8-21 10-21.
