Praneeth, Sameer progress, curtains for Jayaram in Australian Open
SYDNEY: Indian shuttlers started on a positive note at the Australian Open with second seed B Sai Praneeth and fourth seed Sameer Verma progressing to the second round of the men’s singles event here on Wednesday.
While Praneeth beat Israel’s Misha Zilberman 21-17, 21-14, Sameer had to toil to get the better of New Zealand’s Abhinav Manota 13-21, 21-17, 21-12 in the HSBC BWF World Tour Super 300 event.
Sameer’s brother, Sourabh Verma, however, suffered a 19-21 21-17 21-12 defeat at the hands of Japan’s Takuma Ueda. It was curtains for unseeded Ajay Jayaram too despite offering a valiant fight before going down 20-22, 22-20, 21-17 to Japan’s Riichi Takeshita in one hour, 12 min.
Praneeth will next play Panji Ahmad Maulana of Indonesia, while Sameer will be up against Takuma, who defeated his elder brother in the opening round.
Other lesser-known Indians, who lost in men’s singles first round were Karan Rajan Rajarajan, losing 15-21, 8-21 against Sony Dwi Kuncoro of Indonesia, and Rahul Yadav Chittaboina.
In the absence of big names like Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu, Jakka-Vaishnavi Reddy was the lone Indian shuttler to progress to the women’s singles second round after she defeated England’s Georgina Bland 19-21, 21-15, 21-15 in an opening contest.
It turned out to be a good day for the Indians in men’s doubles as the pairs of third-seeded Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy and seventh seeds Arjun MR and Ramchandran Shlok advanced to the next round with easy wins. Manu and Sumeeth defeated Lukas Defolky and Michael Fariman of Australia 21-11 21-10.