London Olympics bronze medalist Saina Nehwal overcame a stiff resistance from Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour to seal a berth in the women's singles semifinals of the World Badminton Championships. Saina shall be taking on a formidable opponent in Okhuhara who prevailed over defending Champion Carolina Marin in her quarterfinal encounter.
Saina was put to a hard test by the local favourite Gilmour who took the Indian to the distance in three closely contested games.
The twelfth seed Indian eventually prevailed over her fast paced Scottish opponent 21-19, 18-21, 21-15 to seal her place in the last four of the tournament. Earlier, PV Sindhu trounced her Chinese opponent Sun Yu to make it to storm into the semi-finals 21-14, 21-9. Sindhu did not allow her opponent to settle and was in full control of the proceedings. The match ended in just 39 minutes. India's challenge in the men' section came to an end when Kidambi Srikanth went down fighting to Son Wan Ho of South Korea.