India’s Harsheel Dani beat Taiwan’s Chun-Wei Chen 21-17, 21-18 in the opening round of the China Grand Prix Gold in Changzhou on Tuesday. Ranked 102 in the world, the 20-year-old beat the World No 113 Chen without breaking a sweat.
Having taken the first game comfortably, Dani was stretched in the second game by Chen. Dani was 11-10 down and from a 16-16 deadlock, he upped the ante to win the game and match. Dani joins Parupalli Kashyap, who returned to the court after three months due to injury. He received a bye in the first round. However, it is a tough road ahead for the Indian who will face players such as the third seed Qiao Bin of China, Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama seeded sixth, Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Jen Hao seeded fifth and top seed Lin Dan.
Most of India’s major badminton players have skipped the China Grand Prix Gold in order to focus on next week’s Badminton Asia Championships.