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Indian shuttlers Malvika Bansod and Ayush Shetty advanced to the semi-finals of the ongoing Hylo Open 2024 tournament in Saarbrucken, Germany on Friday.
Malvika Bansod, seeded sixth at the BWF Super 300 tournament, beat fourth-seeded Nguyen Thuy Linh of Vietnam 21-15, 21-17 in her women's singles quarter-final match. The 23-year-old Malvika Bansod wasted no time in building an eight-point lead at 10-2. Nguyen Thuy Linh, three places above Malvika in the badminton rankings at world No. 31, closed the gap at 18-15. However, the Indian badminton player scored the final three points to take the opening game. The second game followed a similar pattern. Malvika was 9-3 up in the second game before Nguyen Thuy Linh equalised at 17-17. The Indian shuttler scored the final four points to secure a place in the semi-finals, where she will take on Denmark's Julie Dawall Jakobsen, who defeated India's 17-year-old Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj 21-12, 21-17. This will be the third semi-final for Malvika Bansod this year. She won the Azerbaijan International in February and reached the US Open semi-finals in June. She stunned the Paris 2024 bronze medallist Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia en route to the quarter-finals at the China Open. In the men's singles, the 19-year-old Ayush Shetty, who won the bronze medal at the Junior World Championships last year, overpowered Finland's Kalle Koljonen with a 21-18, 21-18 scoreline. Ayush Shetty will take on Christo Popov of France for a place in the final. Christo Popov received a walkover from India's seventh-seeded Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, who pulled out ahead of the contest. Paris 2024 Olympics semi-finalist Lakshya Sen, the last Indian to win a title at the Hylo Open in 2019, and two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, are not competing at the Hylo Open this year. (ANI)
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