After defeating Snizhana Onufriieva of Ukraine by technical superiority in her first bout, Ankush Panghal, who became the U20 Asian champion earlier this year in the 57kg, defeated Germany's Ersel Lisa in a similar fashion in the quarter-finals.
The Indian pair, which came into the BWF Super 100 badminton event winning the India Chhattisgarh International Challenge 2022 last week, took 39 minutes to defeat their higher-ranked opponents 21-19, 21-17 in the quarter-finals at the Nguyen Du Cultural Sports Club in Ho Chi Minh City.
BFC too have had stops and starts in their campaign and scraped through a 10-man Odisha FC in the quarter-finals, with the last touch winner from Roy Krishna following a monumental blunder by the Juggernaut's keeper in the dying seconds.
Chennaiyin FC beat I-League sides TRAU FC and NEROCA FC 4-1 and 2-0 respectively to finish second in Group C after a poor start and qualify for quarter-finals
Midfielder Anirudh Thapa (15') and Vafa Hakhamaneshi scored in each half to take Chennaiyin FC past the hosts and into the knockout stage of the competition.
Playing in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the 24-year-old played fearlessly throughout the three-hour, 31-minute thriller to clinch the match against Nadal 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
The Australian passed the stiff test against the Russian 7-6(11), 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, playing his aggressive game to triumph after two hours and 53 minutes.