P V Sindhu enters All England semifinals
Birmingham: Reigning world champion P V Sindhu returned to form with a thrilling win over Japan's Akane Yamaguchi in an intriguing women's singles quarterfinals of the prestigious All England Championships here.
Sindhu, seeded fifth, staged a remarkable comeback after losing the opening game to notch up a 16-21 21-16 21-19 win over Yamaguchi in a pulsating contest that lasted an hour and 16 minutes to make only her second semifinals appearance at All England.
The Indian had come into the match with a 10-7 head-to-head count against the Japanese even though she had lost the last three meetings.
This was Sindhu's first win in last four meetings with Yamaguchi.
"I am playing against her after quite a long time, I think 2019. We haven't played at all. I'm sure she would have trained very hard. Today's match was a good, tough long match I would say," Sindhu said.
"In the first game I was making a lot of errors and hitting them out because I was on the side with the stronger drift. The second game, it was in my favour. A lot of long rallies. It was important to get that second game.
"In the third game, it was very crucial. My coach was very supportive, he was making sure I controlled the shuttle well. Each point was very important. Overall, it was anybody's game but I am happy to be on the winning side."
The Olympic silver medallist will face Thailand's sixth seed Pornpawee Chochuwong for a place in the final. The Indian has an overwhelming 4-1 lead against the world No. 11 Thai.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
