India made a promising start at the Korea Masters badminton tournament with shuttlers Srikanth Kidambi and Sameer Verma advancing to the second round of the men’s singles competition in Gwangju on Wednesday.
The sixth seed Srikanth defeated Hong Kong’s Wong Wing Ki Vincent 21-18, 21-17 in a match that lasted 37 minutes.
This was Srikanth’s sixth win on the trot against the Hong Kong shuttler. The former world No 1 now enjoys a dominant 11-3 head-to-head record over the Hong Kong shuttler. He will face Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan in the second round.
Sameer also reached the second round after his Japanese opponent Kazumasa Sakai retired midway with the score reading 11-8 in favour of the Indian.
However, it was the end of the road for Sourabh Verma, who went down after winning the first game to local shuttler Kim Donghun 21-13, 12-21, 13-21. It was an upset, for sure, with Kim ranked 112 in the world while Sourabh has been in the top 40 for a while (currently 36).
Incidentally, Sourabh’s younger brother Sameer will take on Kim in the second round on Thursday.