Fullerton, June 28 -- Former world number one Kidambi Srikanth reached his first final of the year with a hard-fought win over Japan's Yudai Okimoto in the men's semifinals of the US Open Badminton tournament here.

The 33-year-old got the better of fourth seed Okimoto 22-20, 15-21, 21-19 in an hour and 12 minutes in the match on Saturday to set up a summit clash against Chinese Taipei's eighth seed Su Li Yang.

Su ended the dream run of India's Rounak Chouhan with a 21-17, 21-19 win in the other semifinals.

In the women's singles semifinal, Devika Sihag could not sustain the momentum after winning the opening game against second seed Line Christophersen of Denmark, going down 15-21, 21-11, 21-15.

But the day belonged to Srikanth, who k...