Praneeth, Kashyap enter quarter-finals

INDIA’S B Sai Praneeth and Parupalli Kashyap advanced to the quarter-finals of the India Open badminton tournament after contrasting wins in the men’s singles competition here Thursday. Praneeth, who had reached the finals at Swiss Open early this month, eked out a thrilling come-from-behind 18-21, 21-16, 21-15 win over fifth seeded compatriot Sameer Verma. Kashyap, a 2014 Commonwealth Games champion, dished out a superb game to get rid of Thailand’s Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk 21-11, 21-13 in the pre-quarter-final contest.

While Praneeth will face either compatriot Kidambi Srikanth, a former champion, or China’s Lu Guangzu, while Kashyap takes on the winner of the match between Subhankar Dey and Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei. Riya Mookerjee too showed the stomach to fight before going down 8-21, 21-17, 13-21 to eighth seed Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark. The women’s doubles pair of Aparna Balan and Sruthi KP edged out Hong Kong duo of Wing Yung and Yeung Nga Ting 21-19, 7-21, 21-17, while the men’s doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Shivam Sharma beat compatriots Aniruddha Mayekar and Vinay Kumar Singh 21-15, 21-11 in the other match.