New Delhi: Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy notched up a stunning straight-game win over World No.18 Li Wenmei and Zheng Yu to make it to the second round of women’s doubles competition at USD 350,000 India Open badminton tournament here Tuesday.
The World No.23 Indian pair, who had finished runners-up at the Syed Modi International World Tour Super 300 tournament stunned Li and Zheng 22-20, 21-19 in the opening round.
However, men’s doubles duo of Arjun MR and Shlok Ramachandran, suffered a 16-21, 18-21 loss to Chinese pair of Huang Kaixiang and Wang Zekang to crash out of the World Tour Super 500 tournament.
In the qualifying round, Indian shuttlers expectedly dominated with eight singles and 10 doubles pairs from the country securing berths in the main draw.
As many as 13 shuttlers were from India out of 16 in the men’s singles qualifiers, where Rahul Yadav Chittaboina, Siddharath Thakur, Kartik Jindal and Kartikey Gulshan Kumar made it to the main draw.
World No. 257 Jindal defeated spirited Sarath Dunna 12-21, 23-21, 19-21 in a tight contest that lasted 53 minutes. He now faces Khosit Phetpradab of Thailand Wednesday.
Chittaboina recorded a 21-14, 21-15 victory over Anant Shivam Jindal while Thakur was equally impressive in his 21-6, 21-13 win over Gurpartap Singh Dhaliwal
In women’s singles, Ritika Thaker, Prashi Joshi, Riya Mookerjee, and Vaidehi Choudhari progressed out of the eight qualifiers, which featured six Indians.
Pranaav Jerry Chopra had an easy outing alongside Shivam Sharma in the men’s doubles qualifying round where the duo needed just 19 minutes to prevail over Vikas Chauhan and Sandeep Choudhary 21-10, 21-5.
In women’s doubles, Megha Morchana Bora and Manali Sinha defeated Anamika Kashyap and Sanghamitra Saikia 24-22, 21-13.
