Kashyap, Prannoy put up strong show to advance to Round Three
Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap and US Open winner HS Prannoy progressed through to the third round of the New Zealand Grand Prix Gold in Auckland after registering victories in their respective matches in the men’s singles event on Wednesday. 15-seeded Kashyap secured an easy win over local shuttler Oscar Guo 21-9, 21-8 in a one-sided contest that lasted for just 25 minutes.
Prannoy, ranked fourth, on the other hand registered a straight-game win over Indonesia’s Firman Abdul Kholik 23-21, 21-18 in 53 minutes. Other Indian shuttlers Siril Verma and Sourabh Verma also progressed to the next round, while Sahil Sipani and Neeraj Vashist made exit from the USD 120,000 event.
began their campaign in the Junior World Wrestling championships on a positive note with Veer Dev Gulia bagging a bronze medal while Deepak Punia entering the bronze medal play-off round in Tampere, Finland.
In the men’s 74kg freestyle category, Gulia finished third after getting the better of Yamasaki Yajuro of Japan 8-5 in the bronze medal play-off bout on the opening day of the competition last night. Punia reached the bronzemedal round after losing his semifinal bout to Zahid Valencia of USA 0-11 in men’s 84kg freestyle category. Punia first defeated Javrail Shapiev of Uzbekistan 18-12 in 1/8 stage, and followed it by beating Bendeguz Toth of Hungary 4-0 in quarters.