Kidambi Srikanth celebrated his elevation to World No. 1 in style even as P.V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal made swift progress in the individual events of badminton at the Carrara sports arena.
The top-ranked Indian made light of the challenge from Sri Lanka’s Nikula Karunaratne 21-10, 21-10 to make it to the men’s quarterfinals where he was joined by H.S. Prannoy, who got the better off Australian Joe Anthony 21-18, 21-11.
Ruthvika Gadde also reached the last-eight.
In the women’s hockey semifinals, India was unable to put it across Australia, losing 1-0, here on Thursday.
In the bronze medal match, India will take on England, which lost to New Zealand 2-1 in a penalty shoot out after a goalless stalemate at full time.
The results: Badminton: Pre-quarterfinals): Men: Kidambi SrikanthNiluka Karunaratne (SL), 21-10, 21-10; H.S. Prannoy bt Joe Anthony (Aus), 21-18, 21-11.
Doubles: Satwik Rankireddy & Chirag Chandrasekhar Shetty bt Jean Paul Christopher & Aatish Lubah (Mri) 21-8, 21-12.
Women: P.V. Sindhu bt Wendy Chen Yu-Hsuan (Aus) 21-15, 21-9; Saina Nehwal bt Jessica Li (Iom) 21-4, 2-0 (retired); Ruthvika Gadee bt Jia Min Yeo (Sgp) 21-10, 21-23, 21-10.
Doubles: Ashwini Ponnappa & Sikki N. Reddy bt Ren-Ne Ong & Cyrstal Jia Ying Wong (Sgp) 2-18, 21-13.
Mixed doubles: Satwik & Ashwini bt Kristen Tsai & Nyl Yakura (Can) 21-10, 21-7; Pranaav & Sikki bt Danny Bawa Chrisnanta & Crystal Jia Ying Wong (Sgp) 21-19, 21-13.
Women’s hockey:Semifinals: Australia 1 (Grace Stewart) bt India 0.
