Kashyap, Prannoy, Sameer, Manu-Sumeeth in US Open quarters

Indian shuttlers Parupalli Kashyap, H.S. Prannoy, Sameer Verma and the men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy advanced to the quarter-finals of the US Open Grand Prix here.

Kashyap played two matches on Thursday before advancing to the third round. His first opponent, Hungary's Gergely Krausz retired when the Indian was leading 21-18, 17-6. The Hyderabadi then battled past Sri Lankan Niluka Karunaratne 21-19, 21-10 in the pre-quarterfinals.

Top seed Prannoy stormed into the pre-quarterfinals with a 21-13, 21-17 victory over Ireland's Joshua Magee. Prannoy then defeated Dutch 12th seed Mark Caljouw 21-8, 14-21, 21-16.

Sameer was involved in two hard-fought contests. He stretched past Croatian Zvonimir Durkinjak 21-19, 25-27, 21-15 in an hour and four minutes before going past Brazilian ninth seed Ygor Coelho 18-21, 21-14, 21-18 in a contest which lasted 60 minutes.

In the quarter-finals, Sameer will meet compatriot Kashyap, while Prannoy will battle it out with Japanese eighth seed Kanta Tsuneyama.

The men's doubles pair of Manu-Sumeeth took just 22 minute to brush aside Indonesians Hendra Tandjaya and Androw Yunanto 21-16, 21-9.

However, Manu had to exit the mixed doubles competition after he and K. Maneesha lost in the pre-quarterfinal to Malaysian fourth seeds Soon Huat Goh and Shevon Jemie Lai 16-21, 12-21 in 27 minutes.

Another men's doubles combine of India, Francis Alwin and Kona Tarun went down fighting against Japanese seventh seeds Hiroki Okamura and Masayuki Onodera, who prevailed 21-19, 9-21, 21-14 in 50 minutes.

Manu-Sumeeth will meet Okamura and Onodera in the quarter-finals on Friday.

The women's doubles pair of J. Meghana and Poorvisha S. Ram lost to Japanese seventh seeds Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara 18-21, 9-21.

In the women's singles, Rituparna Das and Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli too suffered losses. While Rituparna went down Danish seventh seed Natalia Koch Rohde 15-21, 20-22, Krishna exited following an 11-21, 10-21 defeat to South Korean fifth seed Jang Mi Lee.

Young men's singles player Harsheel Dani lost to Vietnamese 15th seed Tien Minh Nguyen 25-27, 9-21.

--IANS

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