Hylo Open 2024: Malvika Bansod, Ayush Shetty Enter Semi-Finals

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India's Malvika Bansod and Ayush Shetty reached the semi-finals in Hylo Open 2024 following straight games wins in their respective singles contests on Friday (November 1) at the Saarlandhalle in Saarbrccken, Germany.

Sixth seed at the BWF Super 300 tournament, Malvika Bansod defeated fourth-seeded Nguyen Thuy Linh of Vietnam 21-15, 21-17 in her women's singles quarter-final match that lasted 45 minutes on court 3.

The 23-year-old Malvika Bansod wasted no time in building an eight-point lead at 10-2. Nguyen Thuy Linh, three places above Malvika in the badminton rankings at world No. 31, closed the gap at 18-15.

However, the Indian badminton player scored the final three points to take the opening game. The second game followed a similar pattern. Malvika was 9-3 up in the second game before Nguyen Thuy Linh equalised at 17-17.

The Indian shuttler scored the final four points to secure a place in the semi-finals, where she will take on Denmark's Julie Dawall Jakobsen, who defeated India's 17-year-old Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj 21-12, 21-17.

This will be the third semi-final for Malvika Bansod this year. She won the Azerbaijan International in February and reached the US Open semi-finals in June. She stunned the Paris 2024 bronze medallist Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia en route to the quarter-finals at the China Open.

In the men's singles, the 19-year-old Ayush Shetty, who won the bronze medal at the Junior World Championships last year, overpowered Finland's Kalle Koljonen with a 21-18, 21-18 scoreline.

Ayush Shetty will take on Christo Popov of France for a place in the semi-final on Saturday (November 2). Christo Popov received a walkover from India's seventh-seeded Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, who pulled out ahead of the contest.

Commonwealth Games 2022 champion and Paris 2024 Olympics semi-finalist Lakshya Sen, the last Indian to win a title at the Hylo Open in 2019, and two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, are not competing at the Hylo Open this year.