India's star shuttler Kidambi Srikanth's campaign at the Indonesia Open World Tour Super 1000 came to a screeching halt after he lost to World no.10 player on Friday (June 16). On the other hand, India's Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty shocked top seed Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto to sail into the men's doubles semifinals before HS Prannoy entered the last-four stage of men's singles competition at the Indonesia Open here on Friday.
Srikanth lost to Li Shi Feng with a scoreline of 14-21 21-14 12-21 as the contest lasted for one hour and nine minutes.
With this win Feng has gone level with Srikanth in head-to-head record with stands at 1-1 now. China's Feng dominated the match through and through as he kicked off in style by claiming the first game despite his slow start. World no.22 Srikanth opened up with an early lead but Feng bounced back by winning five straight points as the Indian shuttler committed too many unforced errors.
Barring the initial two-point lead, Feng didn't let Srikanth to take hold of the game for once and progressed to take a 11-7 lead at the game break. The Chinese shuttler continued his lead executing drop shots with precision and body smashes to easily pocket the first game.
Feng's court coverage and anticipation was way better that his opponent, who made a number of mistakes near the net. Barring a few glimpses of his old self, Srikanth looked completely off colour as Feng continued to increase his lead executing drop shots with precision and body smashes to easily pocket the first game. After a close contest initially in the second game, it was Srikanth who bounced back in style with perfect smashes and wore out his Chinese opponent by playing from front to back of the court to take a 11-6 lead.
Srikanth rode on his aggressive play near the net to take points and eventually close out the second game in his favour to level the scores.
But Srikanth failed to continue in the same vein in the decider as Feng raced to five point lead at the mid-game interval, when the Chinese received medical attention for his heavily strapped left foot. But the injury hardly had any effect on the Chinese shuttler's game as Srikanth failed to close in the gap in the third game.
Prannoy, Satwik-Chirag storm into semis
The seventh seeded duo of Satwik and Chirag then displayed a flawless game to outwit Indonesia's Alfian and Adrianto 21-13, 21-13 in 41 minutes. Satwik and Chirag will play the winner of the quarterfinal between Koreans Min Hyuk Kang and Seung Jae Seo and Indonesia's Leo Rolly Carnando and Daniel Marthin.
Meanwhile, Prannoy registered a win over Kodai Naraoka of Japan. In the final Indian match of the day, seventh seed Prannoy prevailed over Naraoka, seeded third, 21-18 21-6 to book his semifinal berth. Prannoy will take on the winner of the match between top seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark and Chinese Taipei's Tien Chen Chou.
Earlier, Srikanth got the better of Lakshya Sen on Thursday to make it to the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, it was curtains for PV Sindhu against Tai Tzu Ying in straight games.
