Gopi, Aparna in finals at France

Bangalore, March 21: Pullela Gopi Chand and Aparna Popat, National men's and women's champions respectively, stormed into the final of th...

Bangalore, March 21: Pullela Gopi Chand and Aparna Popat, National men’s and women’s champions respectively, stormed into the final of the French Open badminton championships at Paris on Sunday.

According to information received by the Badminton Association of India (BAI) here, Gopi Chand scraped past Martin Hagberg of Sweden 15-9, 15-13 in the quarter-finals, and defeated Spain’s National champion Arturo Ruiz 15-5, 15-6 in the semi-finals. Gopi plays Chinese Chen Gang, ranked 12th in the world, in the championship match.

Aparna, en route to defending her title, rallied to beat Hong Kong’s top player Ling Wan Ting 7-11, 11-8, 11-5 in the quarter-final. She then accounted for second seeded Russian Ella Karachkova 11-7, 11-8 to move one match away from the title. Aparna faces world No 4 Zhou Mi of China in the final. Zhou Mi had easily put it across Woon Sze Nei of Malaysia 11-0, 11-1 in the semis.

However, Nikhil Kanetkar and Abhinn Shyam Gupta had a disappointing day as they went down fighting. Kanetkarsquandered a match point in the decider and lost to Hong Kong’s Nge Wei 15-8, 6-15, 14-17, while Abhinn Shyam, after pocketing the first game at 15-13, lost steam and surrendered the next two games 10-15 and 3-15 to Chen Gang.