press trust of india
Calgary, June 26: Indian shuttlers B Sai Praneeth and Ajay Jayaram reached the singles’ quarterfinals along with two women’s doubles pairs, including Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa, in the USD 50,000 Canada Open Grand Prix badminton tournament here Thursday.
The 22-year-old Praneeth, seeded 10, defeated Sri Lanka’s Niluka Karunaratne 14-21, 21-15, 21-15 in a 57-minute battle at the Markin MacPhail Centre here. He next faces World No. 1 Lee Chong Wei.
Ninth seed Jayaram prevailed over Indonesia’s Wisnu Prasetyo 21-12, 17-21, 21-12 in another hard-fought battle and will next meet top seed Marc Zwiebler of Germany.
In women’s doubles Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa, seeded third, eked out a 16-21, 21-16, 21-17 win over the Netherlands’ Samantha Barning and Iris Tabeling. The other pair of Pradnya Gadre and N Sikki Reddy stunned fourth seeds Johanna Goliszewski and Carla Nelte of Germany 21-15, 21-12.
However, it was curtains for Anand Pawar and Tanvi Lad in the men’s and women’s singles competition. Tanvi fell to third seed and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Michelle Li of Canada 14-21, 13-21 while Pawar lost to second-seeded Chinese Xue Song 15-21, 13-21 in a 39-minute match.
In men’s doubles Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy lost two narrow games 19-21, 19-21 to Jhe-Huei Lee and Yang Lee of Chinese Taipei. In mixed doubles Tarun Kona and N Sikki Reddy also ended their campaign with a 15-21, 15-21 loss to top seeds Michael Fuchs and Birgit Michels of Germany.