Lucknow: Saina Nehwal and Chetan Anand advanced to the quarterfinals but Arvind Bhat crashed out after a stunning third-round defeat in the Syed Modi International Grand Prix badminton tournament here on Thursday.
Top seed Saina crushed Chitralekha 21-9, 21-7 to set up a
clash with fifth seed Indonesian Fransiska Ratnasari, while
Chetan struggled past Indonesian Adnan Fauzi 21-11, 20-22,
21-17.
The men`s top seed will take on compatriot Anup Sridhar
in the quarterfinals tomorrow. Sixth seeded Sridhar spanked
Eshan Naqvi 21-14, 21-11 in another match.
However, the biggest upset of the day was the shocking
21-15, 19-21, 14-21 defeat of Arvind at the hands of Malaysian
Kwong Beng Chan in an hour long match.
In a match that had 111 rallies, Arvind squandered a
first game lead and then found the going tough against the
Malaysian, who held nerve at crucial junctures to emerge as
victorious.
In the first game, the Malaysian opened up a 10-4 lead
but a gutsy Arvind pocketed 14 points on the stretch to lead
18-10 before pocketing the game.
But in the second game, the Indian committed some
unforced errors to allow the Malaysian to take a 10-5 lead.
Arvind tried to come back and made it 19-20 before Chan
wrapped it up to draw level.
In the decider, Chan again zoomed to a 10-3 lead and
although Arvind tried to come back, making it 14-18, it was
all over soon.
Among other Indians in fray, fourth seed P Kashyap
struggled past German Dieter Domke 21-12, 19-21, 21-17 and
eighth seed RMV Gurusaidatt pipped Ajay Jayaram 16-21, 21-8,
21-12 in 42 minutes to reach the quarterfinals.
Sai Praneet B also made it the final eight when Nikhil
Kanetkar retired midway with the former leading 6-2.
In women`s singles, Sikki Reddy beat third seed Maja
Tvrdy 21-16, 21-14, qualifier PV Sindhu beat compatriot Mohita
Sahdev 21-12, 21-14. Seventh seed Trupti Murgunde rallied to
pip Japanese Hirayama Yu 17-21, 21-18, 23-21, while Aditi
Mutatkar prevailed over fourth seed Neha Pandit 21-16, 21-18.
However, it was all over for Dhanya Nair, who went down
to second seed Indonesian Maria Febe Kusumastuti 21-12, 21-6.
In the men`s doubles, top seed Akdhay Dewalkar and Jishnu
Sanyal beat compatriots Davinder Dhillon and Hemant Duggal
21-4, 21-18 and Sanave Thomas and V Diju defeated Venkat Gaurav
and Manish Gupta 21-13, 21-14 Second seed Tarun Kona and Arun
Vishnu got the better of Sai Praneet B and Pranav Chopra 18-21,
21-11, 21-18 to reach the quarterfinals.
Among the women, top seeds Aparna Balan and Shruti Kurian
also reached the quarters after beating Chitralekha and Parssa
Naqvi 21-12 21-19 in the women`s doubles category.
PTI