Prannoy, Sameer cruise into second round with ease
India’s HS Prannoy advanced to the second round of the Badminton World Championship by thrashing New Zealand’s Abhinav Manota in straight games on Monday.
Prannoy, seeded 11th in the tournament, hardly broke sweat in cruising past the unseeded New Zealander 21-12, 21-11. He will next take on Brazilian Ygor Coelho in the second round.
Sameer Verma dumped France’s Lucas Corvee 21-13 21-10 to progress to the second round where he will meet the legendary Lin Dan of China. The mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa prevailed 21-9, 22-20 over Denmark’s Niclas Nohr and Sara Thygesen.
The world no 39 Indian pair will next face the German pairing of Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Herttrich, seeded 15th.
There was good news from the doubles shuttlers too, as the men’s duo of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy and the mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy also advanced. Manu and Sumeeth defeated Bulgarian pair Daniel Nikolov and Ivan Rusev 21-13, 21-18 in the 26-minute affair.
In mixed doubles, Pranaav and Sikki Reddy comfortably went past the Czech Republic duo of Jakub Bitman and Alzbeta Basova 21-17, 21-15 in a 30-minute tie.
However, it was curtains for the women’s doubles pair of Sanyogita Ghorpade and Prajakta Sawant, who lost their opening round clash 20-22, 14-21 to Turkey’s Bengisu Ercetin and Nazlican Inci in 34 minutes.
AXELSEN OPENS WITH DOMINATING WIN
World champion Viktor Axelsen has begun his title defence with a dominating 21-8, 21-7 win over Duarte Anjo.
Axelsen controlled the match throughout, taking an early lead in both games before winning 12 of the last 13 points to advance. Despite being hampered by injuries this season, Axelsen won the European Championship in April and appears to be in the kind of form that last year helped him become the first European in 20 years to win the world title.
CHINESE IMPRESSIVE
Third-seeded Shi Yuqi beat Adam Mendrek of Czech Republic 21-13, 21-11 in his opening match. Shi, who won the All England earlier this year, has the highest seeding of any of the Chinese men.