Parupalli Kashyap rallied from a game down to shock world No. 1 Chen Long and enter the semi-finals in Indonesia Open Super Series badminton tournament, in Jakarta, on Friday.
The No 12-ranked Indian ace, who upstaged world No 8 and fifth seed Son Wan-ho of South Korea 21-11, 21-14 in the previous round, extended his giant-killing run in the tournament, beating the top seeded Chinese 14-21, 21-17, 21-14 in a little over an hour.
However, India's world No 3 Saina Nehwal, seeded second, failed to advance. She frittered away the advantage of winning the first game and leading for most of the third and lost to fifth seed Shixian Wang of China 21-16, 12-21, 21-18 in 69 minutes.
The victory saw the Chinese go 7-6 head-to-head after this 13th meeting with Saina, who won the Indonesia Open in 2010 and '12.
Going into Friday's meeting, Long had a 7-1 head-to-head record against Kashyap, whose only victory against the Chinese was in the same tournament in 2012.
Kashyap was caught napping in the opening game as Long opened up a 6-2 lead. Although he did well to catch up at 11-all, the Chinese broke away and raced to 16-11 before wrapping the game at 14.
The scorers ran neck and next in the second game till 7-7 before the Indian scored repeatedly with deft drops to stay ahead and clinch it.
A keen contest was expected in the decider, but it was Kashyap who broke away at 2-all and establish leads of 9-3 and 14-5 as Long committed too many unforced errors.
The huge gap proved too much for the Chinese, who appeared to run out of steam, as Kashyap called the shots in the closing stages of the match to score a memorable victory.
