Priyanshu Rajawat has been in fantastic form and now stands a chance to make it to his maiden final on the BWF World Tour on Saturday at the Orleans Masters Super 300 badminton tournament in Orleans, France.
The world no. 58 Indian men’s singles specialist has won all his matches in the build-up to the semifinals in straight games, including a rout of top seed Kenta Nishimoto in the pre-quarterfinal.
In the quarterfinals, Priyanshu eased past Chi Yu Jen, handing the Chinese Taipei shuttler a 21-18, 21-18 defeat.
A trainee at the Pullela Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad, the 21-year-old from Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, is a nimble-footed shuttler, combining his speed on the legs with his pace of hands to beat his opponents.
However, the biggest title Priyanshu has won to date is India Chattisgarh International Challenge in 2022. Despite being a talented player, a World Tour title is still out of his reach. If he wins on Saturday, he will have a chance to change that anomaly.
Nhat Nguyen, who is ranked 35th in the world, is an Irish player of Vietnamese lineage. Like Priyanshu, he too has not won anything bigger than an international series-level title, with the last coming in December 2017, at the Welsh International.
Heading into the semifinals, Nguyen, who defeated India’s Sameer Verma in a three-setter in the opening round, will be fresh from a day’s break against Priyanshu, who has already three matches, since his opponent in the quarterfinal, Misha Zilberman, awarded him a walkover.
However, in their first meeting on the World Tour, Priyanshu, ranked lower than his Irish opponent, will be no pushover today.
The live streaming of the Priyanshu Rajawat vs Nhat Nguyen semifinal at the Orleans Masters 2023 will be available on BWF TV, the official YouTube channel of the Badminton World Federation.