Anaheim: Indian shuttlers Parupalli Kashyap, Sameer Verma and HS Prannoy advanced to the quarterfinals of the men’s singles at the $1,20,000 US Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament here Thursday. It was a gruelling day of action as some of the players had two participate in two matches.
Kashyap crossed the second round after his opponent Hungary’s Gergely Krausz retired midway in the second game with the scoreline reading 21-18 ,17-6 in favour of the Indian. The 2014 CWG champion then defeated Sri Lanka’s Niluka Karunaratne, seeded 16th, 21-19, 21-10 in the pre-quarterfinals.
Kashyap will next face compatriot and fifth seed Sameer Verma, who notched up victories over Croatia’s Zvonimir Durkinjak and Brazil’s Ygor Coelho.
Sameer had to fight hard to get the better off Zvonimir 21-19, 25-27, 21-15 in the first match. He then saw off ninth seed Ygor 18-21, 21-14, 21-18 in another three-game encounter.
Second seed HS Prannoy, meanwhile, brushed aside Ireland’s Joshua Magee 21-13, 21-17 before staving off a challenge from the Netherlands’ Mark Caljouw, seeded 12th, 21-8, 14-21, 21-16 in 48 minutes. Prannoy will face eighth seed Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan next.
Among other Indians in fray, third seeds Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy defeated Indonesian combo of Hendra Tandjaya and Androw Yunanto 21-16, 21-9 to set up a clash with seventh-seeded Japanese Hiroki Okamura and Masayuki Onodera.
It was however curtains for Harsheel Dani, Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli, Rituparna Das in singles event.
Vietnam’s Tien Minh Nguyen ended Harsheel’s stay with a 27-25, 21-9 win, while Sri Krishna lost 11-21, 10-21 to fifth seed Jang Mi Lee of Korea and Rituparna suffered a 15-21, 20-22 loss to seventh seed Natalia Koch Rohde of Denmark.
In men’s doubles Francis Alwin and Tarun Kona lost 19-21, 21-9, 14-21 to Okamura and Onodera while the women’s doubles pair of Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram also bowed out with an 18-21, 9-21 loss to Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara of Japan.
Press Trust of India