Dechapol and Sapsiree scrape into semis

Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai moved into the mixed doubles semi-finals of the US$850,000 BWF India Open in New Delhi on Friday.

They battled past defending champions and second seeds Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino of Japan 21-17, 15-21, 27-25 in the World Tour Super 750 event.

The sixth seeds will face Ye Hong-wei and Lee Chia-hsin of Taiwan in the semi-finals on Saturday.

In the other half of the draw, fifth seeds Jiang Zhenbang and Wei Yaxin of China will play seventh seeds Kim Won-Ho and Jeong Na-Eun of South Korea for a place in the final.

Women’s singles star Busanan Ongbamrungphan, the 2022 winner, bowed out after losing to China’s Wang Zhiyi 20-22, 8-21.

Wang will face either second seed Chen Yufei of China or Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in today’s semis.

Men’s doubles pair Supak Jomkoh and Kittinupong Kedren were to face seventh seeds Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi of Japan in a late match.

Meanwhile women’s top seed An Se-Young retired after aggravating knee injury during her quarter-final match against Yeo Jia Min of Singapore.

World No.1 An lost the first game 19-21 and trailed 0-3 in the second before her withdrawal.

Yeo will take on fourth seed Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan in the last four.

In the men’s singles quarter-finals, second seeds Kodai Naraoka of Japan defeated Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia 13-21, 21-9, 21-16 while Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong upset fourth seed Anthony Ginting of Indonesia 21-17, 18-21, 21-13.