Prannoy, Subhankar, Praav-Sikki enter 3rd round

Swiss Open

Basel, Mar 16: Defending champion H.S. Prannoy kept his title defence on track by defeating Scotland's Kieran Merrrilees in straight games to enter the third round of the men's singles competition at the Swiss Grand Prix Gold badminton tourment here on Thursday.

The fifth-seeded Prannoy beat Merrrilees 21-17, 21-19 in a 43-minute encounter. He will now face 10th seed Qiao Bin of Chi in the next round.

Among other Indians in the fray, Subhankar Dey and the mixed doubles team of Praav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy also enjoyed a positive outing as they advanced to the next rounds of their respective categories.

Subhankar defeated Iztok Utrosa of Slovenia 21-17, 21-18 and will now meet Japan's Kanta Tsuneyama in the third round.

The fourth-seeded duo of Praav and Sikki reached the pre-quarterfils of the mised doubles event after Nico Ruponen and Amanda Hogstrom of Sweden handed them a walkover.

However, it was curtains for Sameer Verma, who went down 21-16, 15-21, 13-21 to Tsuneyama in one hour and six minutes.

In the men's doubles category, Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy lost 15-21, 19-21 top seeds Chai Biao and Hong Wei of Chi.

In the women's doubles, Sanja Santosh and Arathi Sara Sunil were defeated 15-21, 15-21 by the German duo of Johan Goliszewski and Lara Kaepplein. The mixed doubles pair of Rohan Kapoor and Sanja also crashed out after going down 16-21, 19-21 to Bastian Kersaudy and Lea Palermo of France. Krish Priya Kudaravalli also saw her campaign come to an end in the women's singles section following a 18-21, 8-21 loss to seventh-seed Fitriani Fitriani of Indonesia. IANS