Kashyap, Prannoy advance, Srikanth loses in Singapore

Singapore, April 9: Indian shuttlers Parupalli Kashyap and H.S. Prannoy notched up superb victories by defeating seeded players to enter the men’s singles quarter-fils at the $300,000 Singapore Open Superseries here on Thursday.

However, it was the end of the road for third seed Kidambi Srikanth and women’s doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponppa who lost their respective second round matches at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

The experienced Kashyap came up with a brilliant performance to oust fourth-seeded South Korean Son Wan Ho. The Commonwealth Games champion took 46 minutes to win 21-15, 22-20, registering his first victory over the World No.5 in three meetings.

Kashyap, 28, will next take on French Brice Leverdez, against whom the Hyderabadi has a 1-1 record. However, the last time they met was four years back in Malaysia.

Later, World No.14 Prannoy caused one of the biggest upsets of the tourment when he downed Danish second seed Jan O Jorgensen 21-16, 21-8 in only 33 minutes. Though the World No.2 was expected to win, Prannoy’s 2-0 career advantage, which he has now extended to 3-0, gave the Kerala shuttler the psychological edge going into the match.

Prannoy will next take on Japan’s Kento Momota, against whom he has not won in the previous two meetings.

Srikanth, who last month won the India Open Superseries in New Delhi, went down 15-21, 20-22 in 38 minutes to Thai shuttler Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk.

Commonwealth Games champions Jwala and Ashwini later went down to multiple time World Champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang. The Indian combine lost 22-24, 18-21, but not before giving a fight in a 40-minute battle. IANS