HS Prannoy advances to pre-quarters

HUELVA (Spain): Ace Indian shuttler HS Prannoy reached the men's singles pre-quarterfinals of the 2021 BWF World Badminton Championships after registering a straight-game win over Daren Liew of Malaysia, here on Wednesday.

The unseeded Indian beat his Malaysian opponent 21-7, 21-17 in a men's singles second-round match that lasted 42 minutes. This was the sixth win for world No 32 HS Prannoy over the 36th-ranked Daren Liew from nine meetings.

With this win, Prannoy joined two other Indians - Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen, in the men's singles pre-quarterfinals of the tournament.

Meanwhile, in the women's doubles, Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy beat China's 14th seeds Liu Xuanxuan and Xia Yuting 21-11, 9-21, 21-13 in a 51 minute clash.

However, the men's doubles pair MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost to the experienced Russian duo of Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov 11-21, 16-21 in 41 minutes and were knocked out.

On Tuesday, reigning world champion PV Sindhu reached the women's singles pre-quarterfinals with an easy 21-7, 21-9 win over Martina Repiska of Slovakia. She will face Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand in the pre-quarterfinals.

Apart from Sindhu, the doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chiraj Shetty also the cut for the third round. (IANS)

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