Young Turk, Neslihan Yigit (pictured), kept the European flag flying in the women’s singles at the Austrian International in Vienna after a energy sapping three game win over Indian Aditi Mutatkar as she continues her good form after her excellent win in Iran last week.

The Turk, who recently graduated from Junior level, is in the form of her life these past two weeks and judging by her battling performance against the Indian today will give any of the other three Asians in the semi finals a run for their money as she goes for a magical two in a row.

Yigit took the opening set before Mutatkar came back hard in the second winning 21-12 but the Turk pulled off an amazing array of net shots to take the match in the third and advance to tomorrows semi finals. Yigit will face the taller of the two Japanese shuttlers left in the tournament in tomorrow’s semi finals after Takahashi easily took care of the challenge of Iceland’s Ragna Ingolfsdottir.

The home Austrian crowd had a lot to cheer about after their third seeded mixed doubles pair of Zirnwald and Baldauf booked their semi final spot with probably the easiest win of the afternoon over Chew and Wang of the USA.
The Austrians now face defending champions Wong & Chau from Hong Kong but will fancy their chances after such a dominant display in the quarter finals.

“It has been nice to play here in front of friends and family and of course it is always an extra motivation when playing at your home tournament. We were favourites today but will be underdogs tomorrow but for sure we will give it our best shot to get into the final.” Said the Austrian pair to Badminton Europe.

In arguably the match of the Day Yuhan Tan came back from 17-12 down in a deciding set against Ville Lang to win 2-19 to advance to the semi finals. The Belgian number one has been showing some good form in Austria and will fancy his chances against top seed Kashyap Parupalli in tomorrow’s semi final.

“I was a long way behind in that deciding game so at that point it was really all or nothing for me. Everyone knows Ville’s style and I just had to go for it but at the same time remain focused. It worked so I am pleased with that” said Tan to Badminton Europe.

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For all scores click HERE.

Article and Images by Mark Phelan (Live in Vienna)