Bittersweet day for India at Indonesia Open

Indiarsquos Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty shocked top seed Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto to sail into the menrsquos doubles semifinals before HS Prannoy entered the Last Four stage of menrsquos singles competition at the Indonesia Open here on FridayPrannoy registered a win over World No 4 Kodai Naraoka of JapanSrikanth bows outHowever world championship silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth bowed out of the menrsquos singles competition after going down fighting to Chinarsquos Li Shi Feng in the quarterfinalsThe first Indian to take the court Srikanth lost 1421 2114 1221 in one hour and nine minutes against World No 10 Feng The win enabled Feng to restore parity as far as his headtohead record against Srikanth is concerned which stands at 11 nowThe seventh seeded duo of Satwik and Chirag then displayed a flawless game to outwit Indonesiarsquos Alfian and Adrianto 2113 2113 in 41 minutes Satwik and Chirag will play the winner of the quarterfinal between Koreans Min Hyuk Kang and Seung Jae Seo and Indonesiarsquos Leo Rolly Carnando and Daniel MarthinIn the final Indian match of the day seventh seed Prannoy prevailed over Naraoka seeded third 2118 216 to book his semifinal berthAlso Read SatwiksairajChirag stun top seed pair roar into Indonesia Open semifinalsPrannoy plays top seed nextPrannoy will take on top seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark who beat Chinese Taipeirsquos Tien Chen Chou 215 2119 In the battle between Srikanth and Feng the Chinese came out on top in the first game despite taking more time to get off the blocksIt was World No 22 Srikanth who opened up an early 20 lead before Feng bounced back with five straight points with the Indian guilty of committing too many unforced errorsThe initial lead was all Srikanth could manage as his Chinese opponent upped his game as the match progressed to take a 117 lead at the game breakFengrsquos fine court coverageFengrsquos 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 gameAfter 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 116 lead Srikanth relied on his aggressive play near the net to take points and eventually closed out the second game in his favour to level the scoresBut Srikanth failed to continue in the same vein in the decider as Feng raced to a five point lead at the midgame interval when the Chinese received medical attention on his heavily strapped left foot The injury hardly had any effect on the Chinese shuttlerrsquos game as Srikanth failed to close the gap in the third gameThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever