15 April,2018 10:40 AM IST | Gold Coast (Australia) | V Krishnaswamy
Saina Nehwal returns to Canada's Rachel Honderich. Pic/AFP
India will pick up both the gold and silver from women's singles in badminton as top seed PV Sindhu and former World No. 1 Saina Nehwal set up the first-ever all-India final at a Major Games. The Commonwealth Games final will be another chapter in the great rivalry between these two global stars.
While Saina was taken to three games by Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour, the 2014 finalist, before winning 21-14, 18-21, 21-17 in a hard-fought 68-minute battle, Sindhu beat the 2014 gold medallist Michelle Li, 21-18, 21-8 to avenge her 2014 CWG semi-finals defeat.
A similar all-India final in the men's section was thwarted by former World No. 1 Lee Chong-wei, who beat Prannoy 21-16, 9-21, 21-14 in just under an hour. A little earlier the freshly-minted World No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth took his appointed place in the final with a straight games win over England's Rajiv Ouseph 21-10, 21-17.
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India will also have pair in the men's doubles final as Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty clash with England's Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge for gold. While all the gold medal matches are slated for Sunday, India picked up their first medal when Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy beat locals Setyana Mapasa and Gronya Somerville 21-19, 21-19 for a bronze in women's doubles. In the morning, they lost the semi-finals to Mei Kuan Chow and Vivian Hoo in three games.
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