Lucknow: Star shuttlers P.V. Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth notched up comfortable victories but it was young Mumbai player Harsheel Dani who hogged the limelight at the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold when he stunned H.S. Prannoy to storm into the quarter-finals here on Thursday.
Olympic silver medallist Sindhu took just 20 minutes to brush aside compatriot Lalita Dahiya 21-7, 21-12 to set up a clash with another qualifier, Vaidehi Choudhari, while defending champion Srikanth prevailed over Ansal Yadav 21-15, 21-16 in a 38-minute clash. He will face seventh seed Malaysian Zulfadli Zulkiffli next.
The highlight of the day was, however, the shock loss of Swiss Open champion Prannoy, who suffered a 18-21, 18-21 defeat at the hands of 20-year-old Dani, seeded 15th, who has been training at the Uday Pawar Academy in Mumbai for the last 14 years. Left-handed Harsheel, the runners-up of the 2015 Turkey International Open, reached the quarters at the last edition also. He next faces Emil Holst, the 12th seeded Denmark shuttler. Holst mauled Siddharth Pratap Singh 21-8, 21-11.
The Verma brothers, Sameer and Sourabh, also reached the quarters with straight-game wins. While Hong Kong Super Series finalist Sameer, seeded eighth, beat Malaysia’s Wei Feng Chong, seeded 10th, 21-15, 21-16, Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold winner Sourabh, seeded 11th, beat compatriot Lakshya Sen 21-14, 21-16. Sameer next takes on world no. 14 Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Vittinghus, the second seed, who defeated Abhishek Yelegar 21-18, 21-5, while Sourabh faces ninth seed B. Sai Praneeth, who eked out a 21-17, 21-19 win over fifth seeded Anders Antonsen of Denmark.
In the women’s singles, Polish Open winner Rituparna Das, who joined the Gopichand Academy after winning the under-13 nationals in 2010, dispatched Russia’s Ksenia Polikarpova, eighth seed, 21-12, 21-19 to set up a clash with fourth seed Fitriani Fitriani of Indonesia. In mixed doubles, Ashwini Ponnappa and B. Sumeeth Reddy defeated Rohan Kapoor and Sanjana Santosh 21-15, 21-18, while Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N. Sikki Reddy beat Ketan Chahal and Mohita Sahdev 21-6, 21-15 to reach the quarters.
