Indian ace shuttler HS Prannoy and the exciting men’s doubles pair of
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty moved to the second round of the
ongoing China Masters being held in Shenzhen on Tuesday.
Prannoy and Satwiksairaj-Chirag, World Championships bronze medalists,
registered straight game wins to move to the pre-quarterfinals stage, as per
Olympics.com.
Prannoy, India’s top-ranked men’s shuttler at number eight, beat the
12th-ranked Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-18, 22-20 in 50 minutes.
The 31-year-old shuttler overcame a slow start and trailing by 6-9 in the
opening game to move to a lead of 11-10 and eventually a four-point lead of
17-13 and won the first game.
The second game proved to be more closely fought one as rallies were
intense. Prannoy made the scoreline 18-all and eventually won the game by
22-20.
Chou had last beaten Prannoy just the previous week in Kumamoto Masters
Japan and leads the Indians 7-5 in head-to-head record.
In the men’s doubles competition, the world number five Satwiksairaj and
Chirag won over England’s Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in 37 minutes by 21-13,
21-10.
However, there were some disappointments as well, with Aakarshi Kashyap,
the only Indian women’s player in the competition, losing to world No. 17 local
Zhang Yi Man 12-21, 14-21 in 33 minutes to crash out of the tournament in the
first round itself, continuing her woeful form this year which has seen her
never reach the round two.
Results at China Masters 2023, a BWF Super 750 event, will be counting
towards players’ qualifying rankings for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The
qualification window for badminton started on May 1 this year and will
concluded on April 2024.
On Wednesday, Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth and Priyanshu Rajawat will be
in action in the men’s singles events.
ANI
