Top seed PV Sindhu remained in hunt to defend her title by reaching the women's singles semifinals but Saina Nehwal, the other top home shuttler, was knocked out of the India Open, on Friday.
Saina, who reached the finals at Indonesia Masters last week, looked a little sluggish in her movement and committed too many unforced errors to go down 10-21, 13-21 to World No 11 American Beiwen Zhang.
Olympic silver medallist Sindhu, however, recovered from a mid-game slump to outwit Spain's world no 36 Beatriz Corrales 21-12, 19-21, 21-11 in the other quarterfinal.
The World Championship silver medallist will next face 2013 World champion and World No 3 Thai Ratchanok Inthanon.
Mixed doubles pair of N Sikki Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra, who had reached the semifinals at Japan Open last year, entered the final four again here after beating Chinese combo of Han Chengkai and Cao Tong Wei 21-8, 21-13.
Meanwhile, it turned out to be a disappointed day for Indian men's singles players as Parupalli Kashyap, B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma suffered straight game losses to their respective opponents to bow out of the tournament.
Commonwealth Games champion Kashyap seemed a bit tired and couldn't keep up with China's Qiao Bin, losing 16-21, 18-21 in the men's singles quarterfinals.
However, the biggest upset of the day was produced by Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi, who knocked out Olympic champion Carolina Marin.