India’s ace shuttler B Sai Praneeth got off to rollicking start at the Thailand Open on Tuesday. The Singapore Open winner was up 21-10, 18-9 in the first round against Indonesia’s Nathaniel Ernestan Sulistyo before the latter retired. Praneeth will now face Malaysia’s Satheishtharan R.
Parupalli Kashyap also beat Milan Dratva of Slovakia 21-6, 21-14 in a clash that began way past midnight. Kashyap will now face second seed Marc Zwiebler of Germany in the next round and has blamed the “ridiculous scheduling” of the tournament.
Other Indians that began with first round wins were Pratul Joshi and Kartikey Gulshan Kumar. Joshi won the clash after his opponent Henri Hurskainen of Sweden retired in the first game at 13-11. Kumar’s beat Thailand’s Chaiyasit Sukasem 21-13, 21-17 and Vietnam’s Thanh Long Truong 21-16, 16-21, 21-11 in the qualifiers to make it to the main draw.
Shreyansh Jaiswal beat Thailand’s Adulrach Namkul 21- 19, 11-21, 21-17 in round one before falling to local player Suppanyu Avihingsanon 21-9, 21-18 on Wednesday morning.
However, it was also the end of the road for Arun Kumar Ashok Kumar, Aditya Joshi, Rahul Yadav Chittaboina, Hemanth M Gowda and Harsheel Dani after they lost their opening round matches. Even Gurusai Dutt lost his opening round clash 12-21, 12-21 to Panji Ahmad Maulana of Indonesia.
In women’s singles qualifying round, Ira Sharma, Aakarshi Kashyap and Rasika Raje failed to progress to the main round, thus, bringing an end to their campaign. In the main draw, Reshma Karthik lost to Indonesia’s Susanto Yulia Yosephin 21-14, 21-12. It was curtains for Ruthvika Shivani also as she lost to Indonesian Sri Fatmawati 21-18, 21-11.
The men’s doubles pair of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla lost 19-21, 16-21 to local pair Supak Jomkoh and Pakin Kuna- Anuvit in the qualifying round as well.
In the women’s doubles encounter, Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram, seeded eighth lost to Indonesia’s Tania Oktaviani Kusumah and Nisak Puji Lestari 21-10, 21-18.