Press Trust of India
Mulheim an der Ruhr (Germany), March 2: Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap crossed the opening hurdle to reach the second round of men’s singles competition at the USD 120,000 German Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament here.
Srikanth saw off Japan’s Takuma Ueda 12-21, 21-18, 21-11 in a hard-fought battle that lasted close to an hour Tuesday night. By virtue of the win Srikanth took his overall record against the Japanese to 3-0. The sixth- seeded Indian will face the Netherlands’ Erik Meijs next.
Kashyap, in contrast, had an easy outing on the opening day as he spanked Ukraine’s Artem Pochtarev 21-9, 21-9 in his first international match in more than a month.
The 11th seeded Indian, who missed a lot of time due to a series of injuries, will meet Irish qualifier Joshua Magee in the second round. Young shuttler Sameer Verma also notched up a easy win over Dmytro Zavadsky 21-9, 21-8 to set up a clash with Korea’s Lee Dong Keun, seeded 15th.
In a late night match played Wednesday, seventh seed PV Sindhu started her campaign with 21-11, 21-13 win over American Rong Schafer.
