Tokyo: World No.1 Pramod Bhagat sailed into the men's singles semifinals beating Ukraine's Oleksandr Chyrkov in his second group A match of the Tokyo Paralympics badminton event here on Thursday as the country's shuttlers expectedly produced strong performances.
The 33-year-old Bhagat, also a reigning world champion, saw off Chyrkob 21-12 21-9 in 26 minutes to top his group and enter the last four in class SL3.
Bhagat and Palak Kohli will play Siripong Teamarrom and Nipada Saensupa in mixed doubles class SL3-SU5 on Friday.
Other Indian shuttlers, including Suhas Yathiraj, Tarun Dhillon and Krishna Nagar also had a good day in office as they opened their men's singles campaign impressively.
While Suhas and Tarun notched up easy victories over Germany's Jan Niklas Pott and Thailand's Siripong Teamarrom in SL4 class respectively, second seed Krishna outwitted Malaysia's Taresoh Didin in SH6 class.
Young Palak also overcame Turkey's Zehra Baglar in her second women's singles match of group A. The 38-year-old Suhas took just 19 minutes to see off Pott 21-9 21-3 in a lopsided group A clash, while Tarun, 27, too didn't break a sweat, beating Teamarrom 21-7 21-13 in a group B match that lasted 23 minutes.
Krishna then prevailed 22-20 21-10 over Didin in a 33-minute group B match.
While Suhas will face Indonesia's Hary Susanto and then France's top seed Lucas Mazur on Friday, second seeded Tarun will be up against Korea's Shin Kyung Hwan and Indonesia's Fredy Setiawan.
The 22-year-old Krishna will take on Brazil's Vitor Goncalves Tavares on Friday.
Suhas, who has an impairment in one of his ankles, has been at the forefront in the fight against COVID-19 menace as the district magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar in Uttar Pradesh.
In women's singles class SU5 class, Kohli beat Zehra 21-12 21-18 in 27 minutes. She had lost her opening match to Japan's Ayako Suzuki.
Earlier in the day, the 19-year-old Kohli and her partner Parul Parmar, 48, went down 7-21 5-21 to second seeded Chinese pair of Cheng Hefang and Ma Huihui in a group B women's doubles SL3-SU5 class match.
The Indian pair will square off against the French duo of Lenaig Morin and Faustine Noel on Friday.
