Dec. 15: India’s best shuttlers Chetan Anand and Parupalli Kashyap smashed their way past lower ranked rivals in their respective second round matches after receiving a bye in the first, at the Indian Open Grand Prix badminton event which got underway at the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy Indoor Stadium here on Wednesday.
It took Chetan 22 minutes and 15 smashes to pack off Mohamad Reza Khanjani of Iran in straight games 21-17, 21-10. With crowd support and experience on his side, Chetan confidently placed his shots well leading all through in both the games.
Kashyap too capitalised on his strong backhand as he ousted countrymate Sameer Verma 21-11, 21-14. With the scoreline reading 6-6 in the first game, Kashyap changed his gameplan to an attacking one, keeping his opponent on his toes. Letting go a couple of points due to shots that landed outside, Kashyap made no further errors and wrapped up the match in 22 minutes.
“Since we train at the same academy (Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy), I am aware of how he plays. So it was not a difficult match for me,” said Kashyap, who is third seed in the tournament. However, it was not a great day for Guru Saidutt who went down fighting to in-form Chinese Yueken Chen 14-21, 21-13, 19-21 in an encounter that almost lasted an hour. “I am not 100 per cent fit as of now and was to miss this tournament. But I wanted to play Yueken since he is a good player and has been winning a few tournaments recently,” said Guru.
Bengaluru boys Arvind Bhat and Ajay Jayaram also made it to the pre-quarterfinals of the men’s singles. While Ajay eased past Japan’s Takuma Ueda 21-12, 21-16; Arvind had a tough task in hand as he outplayed Rohan Castelino 14-21, 21-16, 21-17 in 45 minutes. Top seed Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka of Indonesia defeated India’s K. Tanishak 21-14, 21-14.
Among the women, eighth seed and national champion Trupti Murgunde suffered a shock defeat to qualifier Tanvi Lad 21-9, 21-6. Meanwhile, P.V. Sindhu and Sayali Gokhale impressed with their straight games victory over Alina Sultana of Bangladesh (21-7, 21-12) and Nichaon Jindapon of Thailand (21-19, 21-12) respectively.