PV Sindhu continued her dominant run in the 2026 Malaysia Open Super 100. On Friday, January 9, the Indian female shuttler secured her spot in the semi-finals after defeating World No. 3 Akane Yamaguchi. The match ended in a single-game score of 21-11 after Yamaguchi retired hurt in the 12th minute of the second game. Sindhu claimed her 15th win out of the 27 matches played against Yamaguchi.
With the win, Sindhu has earned a semi-finals appearance in the Super 100 event after five years. Her last was during the 2021 Indonesia Open. The two-time Olympic medalist will next face Z.Y. Wang in the semi-finals match scheduled on Saturday, January 10.
Since withdrawing from the 2025 BWF World Tour season in October due to a foot injury, Sindhu has returned to competition for this event. Earlier in the first round of the tournament, the two-time Olympic medalist defeated Chinese Taipei’s Sung Shuo-yun by sets of 21-13, 22-20 in a 51-minute game. Her prominence followed in the pre-quarterfinals where she defeated eighth seed Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan by sets of 21-8, 21-13.
Meanwhile, the Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have lost India’s doubles at the BWF Super 1000 tournament. The Indian duo got defeated by world No. 6 pair of Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri in the quarterfinals by 21-10, 23-21.
The two-time world championships bronze medallists and reigning Asian Games champions Satwik-Chirag had a slow start in the match that gave the Indonesian pair a 5-0 lead. They comfortably led themselves towards the advantage at 11-5 and by the end of the first game they finished at 21-10.
Going forward in the second game, it was India’s Satwik-Chirag taking the lead at 11-10. Looking to steer clear to win the round, they drew their focus on continuing with the lead after staying at 18-14. But Indonesia’s Fajar and Muhammad responded back and went on to grab six points to take back the lead. While Satwik-Chirag tried their best to take the game in tie-break, the Indonesians took the victory and went on to secure their place in the semi-finals.
In the men’s section, Lakshya Sen and Ayush Shetty had to exit in their respective matches of the second round. Lakshya lost to Lee Cheuk Yiu by 20-22, 15-21, while Ayush Shetty went down against top seed Yu Qi Shi 18-21, 21-18, 12-21.
