Tokyo Paralympics silver medallists Suhas Yathiraj and Nitesh Kumar continued their impressive performance in the Paralympics badminton event here on Friday, entering the semi-finals of the men’s singles SL4 and SL3 categories respectively. Suhas, a 2007 batch IAS officer, topped Group A of three players in the SL4 category by defeating Korea’s Shin Kyung Hwan 26-24, 21-14 in the second match.
On the other hand, Nitesh defeated China’s Yang Jianyuan 21-5, 21-11, which made him among the top two in Group A of four players in SL3 category. Now he will face Bunsun Mongkhon of Thailand in his last Group A match. In SL4, the top players of the group while in SL3, the top two players of each of the two groups will qualify for the semi-finals.
However, it was a disappointing day for Manasi Joshi and Manoj Sarkar who lost their second consecutive match, dashing their hopes of reaching the semi-finals in their group. Manasi lost 21-10, 15-21, 21-23 to Oksana Kozyna of Ukraine in the second match of women’s singles SL3 Group A. She had lost to Konitah Ikhtiar of Indonesia on Thursday. Tokyo Paralympics silver medalist Manoj also lost to Bunsun 19-21, 8-21 in his second match of Group A.
He lost to compatriot Nitesh on Thursday and will now face Yang. SL4 is the category for athletes who have weakness in their lower limbs and have mild balance problems while walking or running. SL3 athletes have a deformity in one part of their body.
On Thursday night, Nitesh and Tulsimati Murugesan lost 15-21, 8-21 to the pair of Ramdani Hikmat and Oktila Liyani Ratri of Indonesia in the second match of the group stage of mixed doubles (SL 3 . SU 5). The pair of Suhas Yathiraj and Palak Kohli also lost 15-21, 9-21 to Lucas Mazur and Faustin Noel of France in the second mixed doubles of Group A. SU 5 players have deformity in the upper part of the body.
