Indian shuttlers start well in 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 yesterday.

While Praneeth beat Israel’s Misha Zilberman in straight games 21-17 21-14, Sameer had to toil hard to get the better of New Zealand’s Abhinav Manota 1321 21-17 21-12 in the opening round of the HSBC BWF World Tour Super 300 event.

Sameer’s brother, Sourabh Verma, however, suffered a hard-fought 19-21 2117 21-12 defeat at the hands of Japan’s Takuma Ueda.

It was curtains for unseeded Ajay Jayram too despite offering a valiant fight before going down 20-22 22-20 21-17 to Japan’s Riichi Takeshita in a pulsating contest that lasted for one hour and 12 minutes.

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 fell by the wayside 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.

Teenage sensation Lakshya Sen, who gave double Olympic champion Lin Dan a scare last week in Auckland, will open his campaign against seventh seed Cheuk Yiu Lee of Hong Kong later in the day.

In the absence of big names like Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu, JakkaVaishnavi 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 a tough opening contest.