Attacking relentlessly during their 64-minute contest, Indians Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly outclassed Li Wen Mei and Liu Xuan Xuan of China 21-14, 18-21, 21-12 to sail into the semifinals of the All England Championships in Birmingham on Friday.
This is the second straight semifinal appearance for the Indians at this Super-1000 event. Having beaten two higher ranked pairs in straight games in the last two matches, the Indian girls were high on confidence and dominated their lower ranked rivals.
The Indians took control of the match from the 9th point in the first game. They raced ahead from 14-12 to 18-12. Usually in doubles, one player controls the net and the other controls the back court. But Gayatri and Treesa traded places well. Up 15-13 in the second game, the Indian duo tried too hard, committed unforced errors and allowed their rivals to force the decider.
There was no change of plan in the third as they hit hard tosses. Their swift returns left little time for the Chinese to react and this gave them the advantage.
Late on Thursday, Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy lost their second round matches. While Srikanth lost to seventh seed Kodai Naraoka of Japan 17-21, 15-21, Prannoy went down to third seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia 22-20, 15-21, 17-21. In a major upset, reigning world and Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen lost to Ng Tze Yong of Malaysia 15-21, 219, 21-13.
