Saina, Srikanth storm into semifinals of Denmark Open
Odense (Denmark), Oct 20: India's Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth stormed into the semifinals of the Denmark Open with hard-fought victories over Nozomi Okuhara and Sameer Verma respectively.
Saina, ranked 10th, recovered after the losing the first game to beat familiar foe and world number seven Okuhara of Japan 17-21, 21-16, 21-12 in the quarterfinal lasting 58 minutes on Friday night.
The final point of the match was a long rally which ended with the Japanese finding the net. It was a morale boosting for the Indian star, having lost her previous three meetings to Okuhara including the most recent one in Korea last month.
Saina had also lost to the 2017 World Champion during the team event at the Asian Games in August.
Overall, their head-to-head record stands at 7-4 in the Indian's favour. Saina next faces world number 19 Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia.
Fellow Indian Srikanth too had to dig deep against countryman Verma with little separating the two in an intense men's singles quarterfinal.
In the end, world number six Srikanth prevailed over the 23-ranked Indian in an epic battle lasting an hour and 18 minutes with the final scoreline reading 22-20, 19-21, 23-21.
The two Indians had not played each prior the quarterfinal and their first meeting turned out to be a slugfest. Verma was leading for the major part of the third and deciding game where he even had a 17-13 lead before Srikanth scripted a remarkable fightback to scrape through.
Srikanth plays second seed and world number one Kento Momota of Japan in the semifinal to be held later on Saturday. The formidable Japanese enjoys an 8-3 career record over Srikanth and has not lost to the Indian in their last five meetings.
In the women's doubles, Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy's spirited campaign came to an end with a loss to top seeds, Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota, in the quarterfinals.
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Mumbai family deaths: FDA finds no watermelon vendor in area to check for affected stock
Mumbai (PTI): The Food and Drug Administration team probing the cause of death of four members of a family in south Mumbai's JJ Marg area have not been able to zero in on any watermelon vendor in the vicinity to check if the fruit had a role to play in the ill-fated incident, an official said on Thursday.
The Dokadia family, residents of Ghari Mohalla on Ismail Kurte Road, had hosted a get-together of relatives on the night of April 25. At around 1 am, hours after the guests had left, Abdullah Dokadia (40), his wife Nasreen (35), and daughters Ayesha (16) and Zaineb (13) ate pieces of a watermelon.
They suffered severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea in the early hours of April 26 and were rushed to a local hospital before being referred to the government-run J J Hospital where all four died during treatment.
"The FDA team visited the house of Dokadia and collected samples of chicken pulao and watermelon pieces. After two days, the leftover chicken pulao had developed fungus growth. The team also tried to locate watermelon vendors to check for any affected lots," he said.
But no vendors were found in the area for the past two days, preventing the FDA team from getting samples, the official added.
The FDA has requested the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to share the report on the food samples collected by them, he added.
A senior Mumbai police official said the force is waiting for FSL reports in the case, adding that questions on presence of sedatives etc in the fruit could be answered only then.
The statements of the kin of the deceased are being recorded to ascertain if it is a case of mass suicide, and it is being checked if the Dokadia family were in debt or distressed over some issue, the police official said.
