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India's Ashmita Chaliha put on an exceptional performance as she thumped Ester Nurumi Wardoyo of Indonesia in straight games to advance to the women's singles semifinals of the Thailand Masters badminton tournament in Bangkok on February 2.
The 24-year-old Chaliha remained the sole Indian contender in the competition after Mithun Manjunath lost in the men's singles quarterfinals, and the women's doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand were eliminated in the last-eight stage of the Super 300 tournament.
Ranked 61st in the world, Chaliha, who entered the main draw from the qualifiers, secured a hard-fought victory against the 44th-ranked Wardoyo 21-14, 19-21, 21-13 in a 57-minute match.
In the first game, both Chaliha and Wardoyo were evenly matched, with the score tied at 7-7 and 8-8. However, Wardoyo managed to take a 14-10 lead. Despite Chaliha's efforts to level the score at 14-14, Wardoyo secured seven consecutive points to win the first game.
Chaliha staged a remarkable comeback in the second game. Trailing 15-19, she won six consecutive points to clinch the second game and force a decider.
With the momentum in her favour, Chaliha dominated the deciding game, preventing her opponent from taking the lead at any point. She quickly surged to a 12-3 lead and comfortably closed out the match.
Chaliha is set to face either fourth seed Supanida Katethong of Thailand or Wen Chi Hsu of Chinese Taipei in the semifinals.
However, the sixth-seeded doubles pair of Treesa and Gayatri suffered a narrow defeat to fourth seeds Febriana Dwipuji Kusuma and Amallia Cahaya Pratiwi of Indonesia 12-21, 21-17, 21-23 in a last-eight match lasting one hour and seven minutes.
In the men's singles, national champion and world No. 63 Manjunath was defeated by Dutchman Mark Caljouw 19-21, 15-21 in 43 minutes in the quarterfinals.
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