World No. 1 Pramod Bhagat sailed into the men’s singles semi-finals on Thursday after beating Ukraine’s Oleksandr Chyrkov in his second group A match of the Tokyo Paralympics badminton event. Bhagat, also the reigning world champion, saw off Chyrkov 21-12, 21-9 in 26 minutes to top his group and enter the last four in class SL3.

Shuttlers like Suhas Yathiraj, Tarun Dhillon and Krishna Nagar also opened their men’s singles campaigns impressively. While Suhas and Tarun notched up easy victories over Germany’s Jan Niklas Pott and Thailand’s Siripong Teamarrom in SL4 class, respectively, second seed Krishna outwitted Malaysia’s Taresoh Didin in SH6 class.

Young Palak Kohli also overcame Turkey’s Zehra Baglar in her second women’s singles match of group A.

Prachi Yadav qualified for the semi-finals of the canoe sprint event in women’s Va’a single 200m. The 26-year-old recorded a time of one minute, 11.098 seconds — 13.014 seconds behind leader Emma Wiggs (58.084s) of Britain in class VL2 heat 1.

Shooter Rahul Jakhar signed off at fifth in the P3 mixed 25m pistol SH1 event.

Aruna Tanwar was forced to withdraw from the repechage round of women’s taekwondo K44-49kg class because of injuries sustained during her opening bout, which she fought in the quarters and lost to Peru’s Espinoza Carranza.