Gold Coast CWG 2018: India storm into badminton mixed team semis

Gold Coast: India stormed into the semi-finals of the badminton mixed team event at the 21st Commonwealth Games after thrashing an unfancied Mauritius 3-0 in the quarter-finals at the Carrara Sports Arena here on Saturday.

India will now face either Singapore or Australia in the semi-finals on Sunday.

India got an early 1-0 lead after the men`s doubles duo of Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty outclassed Aatish Lubah and Christopher Jean Paul 21-12, 21-3, before the women`s double combo of Ashwini Ponnappa and N.Sikki Reddy doubled it by handing a 21-8, 21-7 thrashing to Aurelie Marie Elisa Allet and Nicki Chan-Lam.

Thereafter, top seed Kidambi Srikanth sealed India`s win after whipping past Georges Julien Paul 21-12, 21-14 in the men`s singles tie.

Yet to lose a tie in the competition, the star-studded Indian team continued their dominance over the Mauritius shuttlers by registering straight game victories.

In other events, Indian swimmer Sajan Prakash narrowly qualified for the final of swimming men's 200 metre Butterfly event of the 21st Commonwealth Games at the Optus Aquatic Centre in Australia's Gold Coast on Saturday.

England's Jacob Peters topped the qualifications, clocking 1:58.42 seconds.

Prakash had earlier failed to advance to the next stage of the men`s 200 metre butterfly event in the swimming competition at the 21st Commonwealth Games (CWG) here.

Sajan, however, clocked a time of 1 minute and 58.87 seconds to finish fifth in Heat 2.

He managed an overall ninth position after the conclusion of the two heats. 

Another Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraj entered the semi-finals of men's 50 metre backstroke event at the 21st Commonwealth Games in Australia's Gold Coast on Saturday.

Srihari recorded a time of 26.47 seconds to qualify in the 9th spot among 16 qualifiers in his category.

Meanwhile, Indian weightlifters continued to dominate at the 21st CWG) in Australia's Gold Coast with the veteran Sathish Kumar Sivalingam winning a Gold in the men's 77-kg event here on Saturday.

Sivalingam won the third gold medal for India in weightlifting as he lifted 317 kg in total, 144 kg in Snatch and 173 kg in Clean-and-Jerk in Men’s 77 kg weightlifting event here.

It is his 2nd consecutive gold medal at Games, as he secured the gold in Glasgow in 2014, as well.

It is India’s 5th medal so far in Commonwealth Games 2018, and all of them have come in weightlifting so far. 

(With IANS inputs)