India's top badminton player PV Sindhu beat China's Zhang Yi Man to book a place in Malaysia Masters 2023 semifinal round on Friday, May 26. India's top-ranked shuttler Prannoy HS also reached the last four as he beat Japan's Kenta Nishimoto 25-23, 18-21, 21-18 in the men's singles event in Kuala Lumpur. But India's star badminton player Srikanth Kidambi was defeated by Christian Adinata in the other quarterfinal match.
PV Sindhu, the world no.13, took 74 minutes to beat Zhang by a margin of 22-20, 13-21, 21-16 to continue her dominance in women's singles. She survived the first set by 22-20 but Zhang totally dominated the second set with a 13-21 win and put pressure on the two-time Olympic medalist going into the third set. But Sindhu recovered well in the last fight to win the set and match 21-16. The 27-year-old Sindhu earlier beat Aya Ohori of Japan in the pre-quarterfinal and will face Indonesia's Gregoria Tunjung in the semifinal round.
In men's singles, India's top-ranked Prannoy HS progressed to the semifinal with a dominant 25-23, 18-21, 21-13 win over Kenta Nishimoto to book a place in the top four of the BFW World Tour Super 500 event in Malaysia. The world no.6 Prannoy secured the first set in a 25-23 thriller while Kenta made a strong comeback in the second set with another 18-21 thriller. But Prannoy displayed his well-known technical side as destroyed Kenta in the third set by 21-13 to register a statement win.
But in another quarterfinal match, star shuttler Srikanth Kidambi suffered a disappointing defeat against world no.57 Christian Adinata of Indonesia. Kidambi won the first set by 21-16 to take a confident lead but Adinata stunned the Indian ace shuttler by dominating the second set by 16-21 and the third set by 11-21 to finish the match in just 57 minutes.
