Unnati Hooda in action© X (Twitter)
Indian shuttlers Unnati Hooda and Ayush Shetty will be in action during the semifinals of the Taipei Open on Saturday. Both these young stars will be aiming to go one step further in their chase for a first Badminton World Federation (BWF) Tour title. Ayush, competing in the men’s singles, got the better of seventh-seeded Brian Yang of Canada 16-21, 21-19, 21-14 in the quarter-finals. The match lasted one hour and 11 minutes, as per Olympics.com. The 20-year-old shuttler defeated former world number one Kidambi Srikanth in the round of 16 after getting the better of third-seeded Lee Chia-hao of Chinese Taipei in his opener.
This will be world No. 44 Ayush Shetty’s second semi-final appearance this year. He had also made the semi-finals of the Orleans Masters Super 300 in March after memorably upstaging former world champion Loh Kean Yew in the round of 32.In the semi-finals,
Ayush will play top-seed Chou Tien-chen of Chinese Taipei, who accounted for Mohammad Zaki Ubaidillah of Indonesia in his top-eight fixture.
Meanwhile, Unnati, 53rd in the badminton rankings for women’s singles players, won her quarter-final match against Chinese Taipei’s world No. 65 Hung Yi-Ting. The 17-year-old Indian shuttler took 52 minutes to secure a 21-8, 19-21, 21-19 victory.
She will take on top-seeded Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan in the semi-finals. In the round of 16, Unnati defeated Chinese Taipei’s world No. 99 Lin Sih-Yun 21-12, 21-7.
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