Jakarta: World No. 4 Ratchanok Intanon produced a solid finish in the Asian Games badminton women’s team quarter-finals on Monday as she toppled World No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying to score the first point for Thailand in the best-of-five tie.
Intanon emerged winner in a hard-fought 21-18, 21-18 win against Tai, extending her career meeting advantage to 12-10 after the match.
“I made some unforced errors during critical moments, creating some troubles for myself and had to play catch-up at the end of both sets,” said Tai.
Thailand went on to win the first women’s doubles match before World No. 11 Nitchaon Jindapol sealed the tie 3-0 with 21-18, 21-16 over Taiwan’s Pai Yu-po.
Thailand will meet China in the semi-finals.
In another women’s team quarter-final tie, the Indian women’s team, which won a historic bronze in the last Asian Games in Incheon, suffered a 1-3 loss to the Japanese team.
India’s World No. 3 PV Sindhu got her team to a good start by outlasting World No. 2 Akane Yamaguchi of Japan 21-18, 21-19.
However, N Sikki Reddy and Arathi Sunil then struggled to contain unforced errors and lost tamely 15-21,6-21 to Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota, allowing the Japanese to level the tie.
Then, Saina Nehwal put up a spirited fight by saving four match points in the second game to force a decider, but she eventually lost 11-21, 25-23, 16-21 after battling for one hour and 11 minutes against Nozomi Okuhara.
In the must-win second women’s doubles match, PV Sindhu paired up with Ashwini Ponappa but went down 13-21, 12-21 to reigning Olympic champions Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi.
Japan will play hosts Indonesia for a final berth on Tuesday.
