Kashyap wins marathon, in Last 16
New Delhi, April 22: Parupalli Kashyap played one of the longest matches of his career as he roared into the men’s singles prequarterfinals with a threeset win over Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Jen-hao at the $200,000 Badminton Asia Championship in Wuhan, China, on Wednesday.
In a contest that lasted for more than 90 minutes, Kashyap played out of his skin to see off Hsu 15-21, 21-18, 21-19 at the Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium.
Kashyap, the Commonwealth Games champion, will next take on seventh seed Chinese Wang Zhengming, who beat Thailand’s Boonsak Ponsana 21-10, 21-12.
The Indian has lost to Wang thrice, while defeat- ing him once at the 2014 India Super Series.
Two-time world championship bronze medallist P.V. Sindhu too made a positive start, taking just 16 minutes to dispose of Uzbekistan’s Anait Khurshudyan 21-6, 21-5 in a women’s singles match.
CWG bronze medallist Sindhu, seeded eighth, will next take on Macao’s U. Teng Iok.
The men’s doubles pair of Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Jerry Chopra failed to cross the second round, going down 15-21, 17-21 to fourth seeds Hiroyuki Endo and Kenichi Japan.
Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy, however, got a walk over to enter the third round.
The match between Kashyap and Hsu saw a lot of drama as the electricity went off when the Indian was leading 20-19 in the decider. Around 10 to 15 minutes was lost in the process, but when the lights were on, Kashyap didn’t waste any time as his serve earned him match point.
“It was a tough match, quite long. But I am happy with my performance. He had beaten me once during ABC last year. Even in the India Open it was a tight match. “Overall a good match. I hope I can recover well for tomorrow,” Kashyap said. — PTI
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