Parupalli Kashyap, Sameer Verma book last 8 spots

New Delhi: Parupalli Kashyap, Sameer Verma and the mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa entered the India Open badminton tournament’s quarter-finals here on Thursday.

Kashyap defeated compatriot Shreyansh Jaiswal 21-19, 19-21, 21-12.

Coming back after recovering from a shoulder injury, Sameer overcame former world no. 3 Indonesia’s Tommy Sugiarto 21-18, 19-21, 21-17 in an hour and 20 minutes.

Unseeded Satwik and Ashwini stunned third seeds Malaysia’s Tan Kian Meng and Lai Pei Jing 21-16, 15-21, 23-21.

They squandered four match points but utilised the fifth to reach the quarter-finals of a major tournament for the first time.

Later, Olympic champion Carolina Marin overcame a scare from Chinese teenager Gao Fangjie to enter the quarter-finals. In one of the longest matches of the tournament that lasted an hour and 23 minutes, Marin had to use all her experience to down the China Open runner-up 15-21, 21-15, 21-11.

Eighth seeds Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N. Sikki Reddy also entered the quarters, beating the Indo-Malaysian pair of Prajakta Sawant and Yogendran Khrishnan 21-10, 21-19 in 32 minutes.

Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy too progressed to the last eight stage with a 21-11, 21-15 win over Tushar Sharma and Chandrabhusan Tripathi.

Earlier, Mugdha Agrey’s campaign ended with a 12-21, 16-21 loss to fifth seed Zhang Beiwen of USA, while eighth seeded Spain’s Beatriz Corrales halted Ruthvika Shivani Gadde’s run with a 21-19, 21-16 win.

Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg lost 10-21, 11-21 to fifth seeds Mathias Christiansen and Christinna Pedersen of Denmark.