Press Trust of India
Calgary (Canada), July 2: Indian shuttlers Ajay Jayaram and B Sai Praneeth advanced to the semifinals of the USD 55,000 Canada Open Grand Prix badminton tournament after notching up contrasting victories in the men’s singles competition here Friday.
Top seeded Jayaram defeated fellow Indian Harsheel Dani 21-18, 19-21, 21-8 in a hard-fought match that lasted 47 minutes. The two-time Dutch Open winner, Jayaram will face Korea’s Lee Hyun Il, seeded third, in the semifinals.
Fourth seed Praneeth too made it to the final four after brushing aside eighth seed Raul Must of Estonia 21-14, 21-16 in just 33 minutes to set up a clash against seventh seeded Frenchman Brice Leverdez, who had ended the campaign of second seed HS Prannoy of India. Prannoy played out of skin before going down fighting 22-20, 21-23, 18-21 to Leverdez.
In women’s singles, it was curtains for Ruthvika Gadde and Tanvi Lad. While Ruthvika suffered a 16-21, 12-21 loss to fourth seed Linda Zetchiri of Bulgaria, Tanvi fought hard before going down 16-21, 21-15 ,10-21 to third seed Iris Wang of USA.
Among other Indians in fray, top seeds Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, who have qualified in men’s doubles for the Rio Olympics, were given a walkover by Canada’s Ted (Chin Tai) Chen and Chinese Taipei’s Liao Chao Hsiang. The Indian duo will play Indonesia’s Andrei Adistia and Canada’s Dong Adam (Xingyu).
Rio-bound women’s doubles team of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa, seeded top, gave a walkover to Leanne Choo of Australia and Rachel Honderich of Canada. In another women’s doubles match, Jakkampudi Meghana and S Poorvisha Ram suffered a narrow 21-18, 16-21, 20-22 loss to Hung Yi-Ting and Su Hsiang Ling of Chinese Taipei.
Manu and Ashwini also gave a walkover to fourth seed Nico Ruponen and Amanda Hogstrom of Sweden in the mixed doubles competition.
