Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam): India’s Siril Verma stunned top seed Darren Liew of Malaysia in a hard-fought three-game contest to enter the men’s singles third round of the Vietnam Open badminton tournament here Thursday.
Siril, who is ranked 97th in the world, battled hard for 52 minutes to get past World No.22 Liew 17-21 21-19 21-12 in a second round duel.
Siril will next face Chinese qualifier Lei Lan Xi for a place in the quarterfinals of the BWF Tour Super 100 tournament.
Another Indian to make it to the men’s singles third round was second seed Sourabh Verma. Sourabh had to dig deep to get the better of Japan’s Kodai Naraoka 22-20 22-20 in a match that lasted 54 minutes.
Sourabh will take on Japan’s Yu Igarashi next. However, it was curtains for third seed Shubhankar Dey, who suffered a straight-game 11-21 17-21 defeat at the hands of unseeded Malaysian Jia Wei Tan.
India’s campaign also ended in the men’s doubles event after the pair of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla lost 13-21 11-21 to top seeds Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han of Chinese Taipei.
