India’s impressive show continues as H. S. Prannoy stormed into the Last 16 of the BWF World Badminton Championships on Wednesday (December 15).
Prannoy, who hails from Thiruvananthapuram, came down heavily on Malaysian Daren Liew in straight sets at 21-7, 21-17 in a men’s singles second-round match.
Prannoy looked in great touch from the word go to keep Liew at bay. From 8-5 in the first game, the Indian took eight straight points to reach 16-5 before claiming it.
Liew showed some resistance in the second game and the two players were levelled at 6-6. Prannoy then made a comeback and cruised to 16-11. The Malaysian tried to cut down on the gap but the Indian once again stamped his authority and made it 19-16 which ultimately earned him the second game as well as the match.
Prannoy will be up against the winner of the second round match between Spain’s Luis Enrique Penalver and Rasmus Gemke of Denmark in the pre-quarterfinals.
With this facile victory, Prannoy joined the two other Indians, Kidambi Srikanth and Laksya Sen, in the men’s singles pre-quarters.
Ashwini-Sikki duo dazzles
In women’s doubles, the Indian duo of Ashwini Ponappa and N. Sikki Reddy also marched into the pre-quarterfinals. In a hard-fought match that lasted for 51 minutes, Ashwini and Sikki nicked past the Chinese pair of Liu Xuan and Xia Yu Ting.
Meanwhile in the men’s doubles, India’s M. R. Arjun and Dhruv Kapila went down to the 11th seed Russian duo of Vladimir Ivanov & Ivan Sozonov with an 11-21, 16-21 scoreline.
Earlier on Tuesday, India’s reigning world champion in women’s singles PV Sindhu advanced after defeating Martina Repiska of Slovakia.
