Sindhu enters final; Nehwal, Kashyap in semifinal at Senior National Badminton Championships

Top seed PV Sindhu staved off a gutsy fightback from Assam's Ashmita Chaliha to enter the final at the 83rd Senior National Badminton Championships here in Guwahati on Friday.The two-time champion had to claw her way back from 16-19 down in the second game and needed two match points to douse the challenge of the spirited fourth seed Chaliha 21-10, 22-20.Egged on by the motley crowd, Chaliha drew level at 13-13 and jumped into a 17-14 lead against the Rio Olympic silver medallist before advancing to 19-16. However, Sindhu's vast experience came in handy and she evened the score at 19-19 to have a match point at 20-19.The resilient Chaliha was not done yet and she saved the first match point only to see her world number six opponent wrapped it up on her in 38 minutes.In the other semi-final matches of the day, Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg lived up to their reputation as the top seeds in mixed doubles.World number 46 pair needed only 32 minutes to dispatch Vighnesh Devlekar and Harika V .