Top seeds Ashwini Ponnappa-N Sikki Reddy advanced to the semi-finals of the women’d doubles event at the Hyderabad Open badminton after straight games victory over another Indian pair of Meghana Jakkampudi-Poorvisha Ram on Friday.
Ponnappa-Reddy won 21-16, 21-15 against the eighth seeded pair to set up a semi-final against Hong Long’s Ka Yan Fan-Yi Ting Wu.
In men’s singles seventh seeded Sourabh Verma made his way into the last four after victory over unseeded Indian Ajay Jayaram. He won by a comfortable 21-18, 21-9 margin. Verma will face Malaysia’s Iskander Zulkarnian in the semi-final on Saturday.
Verma is the sole Indian left in singles contention in the Super 100 event.
Fifth seed Subhankar Dey lost out to Singapore’s Kean Yew Loh in straight games to bow out of contention.
In men’s doubles, second seed Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy lost 19-21, 21-11, 21-17 to South Korean pair of Sung Seung Na and Chan Wang.
It was heartbreak for India’s other men’s doubles pairing MR Arjun and Shlok Ramachandran who lost out to fourth seed Chinese Taipei’s Jhe-Huei Lee and Po-Hsuan Yang 21-19, 21-9.
