Watch highlights: Srikanth Kidambi reaches Malaysia Masters semifinals with another impressive win
Continuing his impressive return to form this week, former world No 1 Srikanth Kidambi secured a place in the semi-finals of the Malaysia Masters 2025 with a hard-fought win over world No 18 Toma Junior Popov in a thrilling quarterfinal encounter on Friday. Srikanth, who has slid down to world No 65 but is mounting a comeback, edged past the senior of the Popov brothers 24-22, 17-21, 22-20 in a match that lasted just over an hour.
Having come through the qualification rounds to reach the main draw in Kuala Lumpur this week, earlier in the tournament, Srikanth ousted sixth seed Lu Guang Zu of China and world No 33 Nhat Nguyen of Ireland in impressive fashion. Srikanth last reached the semifinals on the BWF World Tour in March last year at the Swiss Open where he had lost in three games against Lin Chun Yi.
Srikanth will next face Japan's Yushi Tanaka (world No 23) in the semi-finals, aiming to continue his outstanding run. Tanaka will be a tricky opponent as Srikanth's friend and training partner HS Prannoy would have found out, as the Japanese shuttler ousted the 2023 Malaysia Masters winner on Thursday in the round of 16. The Japanese bea Christo Popov, brother of Toma Junior, 21-18 16-21 21-6 in the other men's singles quarterfinal.
The second men's singles semifinal will be played between fourth seed Kodai Naraoka of Japan and second seed Li Shi Feng of China. Srikanth is now the lone surviving Indian in the BWF World Tour Super 500 tournament after the exit of the mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto in the quarterfinals on Friday. Kapila and Crasto gave top seed Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Xin of China a tough fight in the first game but lost steam in the next to bow out 22-24 13-21 in a 35-minute affair.
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