Sindhu, Prannoy enter China Masters quarterfinals
LONDON: Shuttlers HS Prannoy and PV Sindhu entered the quarterfinals of their respective men’s and women’s singles matches after posting comfortable wins at the China Masters Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament here on Thursday.
India’s star women’s doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashiwini Ponnappa also made the last eight with an easy win, but it was curtains for men’s doubles duo of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar. Prannoy, seeded seventh, got the better of Malaysia’s Daren Liew 21-10, 21-15 and will next take on top seed Chen Long.
Fourth seeded Sindhu beat Chinese Taipei’s Chien Hui Yu, winning 21-9, 21-17.
She will now face Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand in the quaterfinals.
Jwala and Ponnappa thrashed Chinese Taipei pair of Hsieh Pei Chen and Wu Ti Jung 21-12, 21-12 to set up a clash with top seeded Chinese duo of Luo Ying and Luo Yu. However, Pranaav and Akshay bowed out of the tournament after going down to seventh seeded Chinese combination of Wang Yilyu and Zhang Wen 17-21 12-21 in 36 minutes in the second round of men’s doubles. GAGAN EYES FINAL SPOT
RIO DE JANEIRO: India’s Gagan Narang and Chain Singh will be vying for a spot in the finals of the men’s 50m Rifle Prone event after coming through in the elimination rounds on day six of the ISSF World Cup here.
Gagan, an Olympic bronze medallist, posted 620 to finish 11th while Chain shot 622.5 to be sixth. WRESTLERS HOPEFUL
ULAANBAATAR: Having missed out on Olympic berths on two occasions, a 15-member Indian team will be determined to book as many quota places as possible when they take the mat at the 1st OG World Qualifying tournament here starting on Thursday.
This is the penultimate Olympic qualification competition where the top three finishers in each weight category will secure an Olympic berth for a country.
While the wrestlers finishing on the top two positions would automatically be assured of Olympic berths, there would be a fight-off between the two bronze medallists for booking a place at the Rio Games.
So far three Indian wrestlers — two from men’s freestyle division and one from Greco-Roman category — have qualified for Rio. London Games bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt (men’s 65kg freestyle), Hardeep (Greco-Roman 98kg) and Satywart Kadian (97kg freestyle) have qualified.