French Open: PV Sindhu beats Chiu Pin-chian to seal semi-final spot

Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu kept India's hopes alive at the French Open 2026 by defeating Chinese Taipei's Chiu Pin-chian in straight games to reach the women's singles semi-finals on Friday (Oct 23). The world No. 11 Indian shuttler beat the world No. 17 player 21-13, 21-14 in a quarter-final match that lasted 39 minutes at the Arena Grand Paris.

Sindhu started strongly and took an 11-5 lead at the interval in the opening game before securing it comfortably. She continued her dominance in the second game, racing to a 7-0 lead and maintaining her advantage to seal the victory.

This was Sindhu's second win over Chiu, having also defeated the Chinese Taipei player at the Asian Games 2026 last month.

With this result, Sindhu has reached the semi-finals of four BWF World Tour events this year. She previously made the last four at the Malaysia Open in January and the Australian Badminton Open in June, before winning the Japan Open title in July.

Sindhu will face either Indonesia's world championships bronze medallist Putri Kusuma Wardani or Japan's Hina Akechi in the semi-finals on Saturday.

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She is now India's only remaining contender at the BWF Super 750 tournament after Ashmita Chaliha lost her quarter-final match earlier on Friday.

Chaliha, who had stunned three-time world champion Akane Yamaguchi in the pre-quarter-finals to claim the biggest win of her career, suffered a 21-10, 17-21, 21-16 defeat against Japan's Olympic medallist Nozomi Okuhara.

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India's men's singles campaign had ended on Thursday after Ayush Shetty retired due to injury, while Lakshya Sen withdrew before his first-round match.

The men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and the women's doubles team of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also exited the tournament in the opening round.