Pride of India, former Olympic silver medalist shuttler P V Sindhu, who produced a top-notch performance in All England Championship. PV Sindhu thrilling three-game victory over 2016 champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan to progress to her maiden semifinal at the USD 1000,000 All England Championship on Friday.

The Indian challenge in the men’s singles section ended with HS Prannoy losing to World No 42 Huang Yuxiang 22-20, 16-21, 21-23 in the quarter-final. This is the best-ever finish by Prannoy, world No. 16. He has never been able get past the second round in the his earlier three appearances at the All England. The quarterfinal clash lived up to its billing as Sindhu and Okuhara strained every sinew to dish out yet another nail-biting contest at the Arena Birmingham.

It boiled down to finding the right balance of aggression and patience and Sindhu ensured that she had the last laugh as she outwitted Okuhara 20-22, 21-18,  21-18 in a battle that lasted 84 minutes.  With this victory, Sindhu registered her fifth win over the Nagano-born World No. 6 Japanese, who robbed her of a World Championship gold at Glasgow after a 110 minute marathon battle which went down in history as one of the greatest.

“It was like the World Championship and Dubai Super Series match, not so long may be but it was not easy to play against Okuhara. We know each other’s game so there were long rallies. We had to give our best,” world no 3 Sindhu said moments after the match.