Badminton Hylo Open 2024: Malvika Bansod, Ayush Shetty strong into semi-finals
India’s Malvika Bansod and Ayush Shetty entered the semi-finals of the men’s and women’s singles events at the Hylo Open 2024 badminton tournament in Saarbrucken, Germany on Friday.
Malvika Bansod, ranked sixth at the BWF Very 300 tournament, defeated fourth-ranked Nguyen Thuy Linh of Vietnam 21-15, 21-17 in the women’s singles quarter-final.
It did not take long for 23-year-old Malvika Bansod to build a crucial advantage at 10-2. Nguyen Thuy Linh, three places ahead of Malvika in the world badminton rankings at No. 31, closed the gap at 18-15. However, the Indian badminton player scored the last three points to win the first set.
The next match followed a comparable example. Malvika led 9-3 in the second set before Nguyen Thuy Linh adjusted at 17-17.
The Indian won the last four points to book a place in the semi-finals, where she will face Denmark’s Julie Dawall Jakobsen, who defeated India’s 17-year-old Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj 21-12, 21-17.
This will be Malvika Bansod’s third semifinal appearance this year. She won the Azerbaijan Worldwide in February and reached the US Open semifinals in June. She crippled Paris 2024 bronze medalist Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia on her way to the quarterfinals at the China Open.
In the men’s singles, 19-year-old Ayush Shetty, who won bronze at last year’s Lesser Big tournament, defeated Finland’s Kalle Koljonen 21-18, 21-18.
Ayush Shetty will take on France’s Christo Popov for a place in the final. Christo Popov overcame seventh-placed Indian Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, who withdrew before the challenge.
Paris 2024 Olympic semi-finalist Lakshya Sen, the last Indian to win the Hylo Open in 2019, and Olympic medallist PV Sindhu will not be participating in this year’s Hylo Open.
