Kidambi Srikanth stuns top seed Chou Tien Chen to enter Canada Open semifinals
The former world championships silver medallist, who had reached the finals of the Malaysia Masters in May this year, outclassed world number six Chen 21-18 21-9 in a 43-minute quarterfinal clash on Friday night.
Currently ranked 49th in the world, Srikanth will next face Japan's third seed Kenta Nishimoto for a place in the final.
Earlier, S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian, the 2022 World Junior Championships silver medallist, produced a gallant fight before going down to Nishimoto 15-21 21-5 17-21 in a gruelling 79-minute quarterfinal.
In women's singles, Shriyanshi Valishetty's impressive run came to an end after she lost to Denmark's Amalie Schulz.
Srikanth, the 32-year-old from Guntur who won four titles in a breakthrough 2017 season, came into the match with a 4-6 record against Chen but had beaten the Taipei shuttler in their last two meetings.
He made a dominant start, racing to a 5-0 lead and keeping his nose ahead at 16-16 in the opening game. Chen briefly threatened to turn the tables, leading 17-16, but Srikanth reeled off five of the next six points to pocket the game.
In the second game, Srikanth broke away from 4-4 to lead 11-6 at the interval and continued his dominance to surge to 19-7 before sealing the match with ease.
Srikanth enjoys a 6-4 head-to-head record against Nishimoto, though he lost to the Japanese shuttler in their last meeting at the 2023 World Championships.
With his victory, Srikanth remains the lone Indian in contention at the USD 240,000 tournament.
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