Japanese badminton teammates Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino cruised past their Thai opponents on Wednesday to reach the Paris Olympics mixed doubles semifinals.The fourth seed Japanese won the quarterfinal 2-0 against Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai, scraping through the first game 23-21 and then having an easier time in the second winning 21-14.Watanabe and Higashino, the Tokyo Olympic bronze medalists, had a poor start to the match, with the duo going down by as many as nine points in the first game, but they showed grit to drag themselves back into the game to grab …READ FULL ARTICLE
