Malvika Bansod goes down to world no. 21 Tunjung in Hylo Open quarterfinals

NAGPUR: Malvika Bansod’s excellent run in the Hylo Open came to an end in the quarterfinals of the Super 300 tournament at Saarbrucken, Germany, on Friday.
Up against Indonesia’s world no. 21 Gregoria Mariska Tunjung, the 39th ranked Malvika fought well for over 33 minutes but lost the momentum in the dying stages of the first game and failed to control the shuttle in the later stage of the clash to go down in the women’s singles quarterfinal 17-21, 10-21.
In contrast to her usual slow start, Malvika began aggressively and took a handy 6-3 lead in the first game. The experienced Tunjung broke Malvika’s momentum by scoring seven points on the trot to take a 10-6 lead and went into the break with a 11-10 advantage.
While Malvika brought parity at 17 points, an umpires call went against the city shuttler and Tunjung made the most of the situation to close the first game with four straight points 21-17.
In the second game, Malvika was playing with the wind and was unable to control her shuttle and committed some unforced errors to lose the same 10-21 after trailing 6-11 at the break.
With Malvika’s exit, the Indian challenge in the women’s singles came to an end.
Earlier in the pre-quarterfinals on Thursday, Malvika posted her career’s biggest victory with a stunning win over world no 18 and seventh seed Kirsty Gilmour 24-20, 19-7 after the latter retired while trailing by 12 points in the second game.
Treesa-Gayatri, Srikanth enter semis; Satwik-Chirag lose
Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand progressed to the semifinals of the women’s doubles competition with a hard fought 21-17, 18-21, 21-8 win over 65th ranked pair of Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Ya Ching and Lin Wan Ching. In the semifinals, the world no. 28 Indian pair will take on eighth seeds Benyapa Aimsaard and Nuntakarn Aimsaard of Thailand.
Top Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a straight-game loss to seventh seeded English duo of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy 17-21, 14-21 in the quarterfinal.
In the men’s singles quarterfinal, unseeded Kidambi Srikanth outplayed Indonesian sixth seed Jonatan Christie 21-13, 21-19 in 39 minutes to keep the Indian flag flying high. In the semifinals, Srikanth will face the challenge of Indonesia’s fifth seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting.