Sindhu storms into French Open semifinals, keeps India’s campaign alive

Paris, Oct 23 : Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu kept India’s campaign alive at the French Open 2026 badminton tournament by storming into the women’s singles semi-finals with a straight-game victory on Friday.

World No. 11 Sindhu defeated Chinese Taipei’s Chiu Pin-chian, ranked 17th in the world, 21-13, 21-14 at the Arena Grand Paris, according to olympics.com.

The victory marked Sindhu’s second win over Chiu, having also beaten her at the Asian Games last month. The Indian shuttler has now reached the semi-finals of four BWF World Tour tournaments this year.

Sindhu had earlier reached the semi-finals of the Malaysia Open in January and the Australian Badminton Open in June before clinching the Japan Open title in July.

Displaying dominant form, Sindhu raced to an 11-5 lead at the interval in the opening game before comfortably sealing it. She continued in the same vein in the second game, surging to a 7-0 lead and wrapping up the contest in just 39 minutes.

Sindhu will face either Indonesia’s world championships bronze medallist Putri Kusuma Wardani or Japan’s Hina Akechi in Saturday’s semi-final.

Sindhu is now the only Indian player remaining in contention at the BWF Super 750 tournament after Ashmita Chaliha suffered a quarter-final defeat against Japan’s Olympic medallist Nozomi Okuhara earlier in the day.

Ashmita, who had stunned three-time world champion Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in the pre-quarter-finals to register the biggest victory of her career, went down fighting 21-10, 17-21, 21-16 against Okuhara.

India’s men’s singles campaign had ended on Thursday after Ayush Shetty retired hurt. Lakshya Sen had earlier withdrawn before his opening-round match.

India’s men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and women’s doubles combination of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also suffered opening-round exits.