Hong Kong Open: Shuttler Kashyap struggles into second round

Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Parupalli Kashyap on Tuesday crushed Hsu Jen-hao of Taiwan in men's singles event on the opening day of the Hong Kong Open here at Hong Kong Coliseum.

The 32-year-old disposed of the Taiwanese counterpart 21-7, 12-21, 21-18 in a thrilling opening game that lasted an hour.

Kashyap, with 11 consecutive points, raced ahead of Jen-hao, who could only bag six consecutive points overall in the game. The Indian shuttler also clinched 54 rallies, while Jen-hao could only gain 46 of them.

At a point, as the game progressed into the second game, the Taiwanese player broke the momentum of Kashyap with a scintillating comeback and took the game into the decider.

From a game down, Kashyap revived his drive to again make the game one-sided. With a total of 54 points, Kashyap showed doors to his opponent, who could only secure 46 points in the round-of-32.

On the other hand, in the mixed doubles event, the Indian pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa, who crashed out of their opening fixture of recently-concluded China Open, defeated Taiwan duo of Wang Chi-lin and Lee Chia-Hsin 21-16, 19-21, 21-14 on their day one.

The Indian campaigners dominated the game with seven consecutive points and three game points, while the Taiwan duo settled with four consecutive points and one game point in their overall game.

However, in the second game, the Taiwan pair shattered the straight games win for the Indian duo with a thrilling turnaround and took the game to the decider.

In the deciding game, the Indian pair refreshed their energy and showed the doors to their Taiwan opponents to win the round of 32.

Parupalli Kashyap will now face Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia in the second round of the men's singles event, while the Indian pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy will compete Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi of Japan in the women's doubles event.

Meanwhile, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy along with Chirag Shetty will compete against Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark in the men's doubles event on November 14.