Manu-Sumeeth, Sindhu, Prannoy, Kashyap advance at Thailand Open

India's men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy on Wednesday created a big upset in the opening round as they joined P.V. Sindhu, H.S. Prannoy and Parupalli Kashyap in the pre-quarterfinals of the Thailand Open badminton tournament here.

The Manu-Sumeeth pair overcame Chinese Taipei's fourth seeds Chen Hung Ling and Wang Chi-Lin 21-18, 15-21, 21-17 to enter the Round-of-16. Up next for Manu-Sumeeth are Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe on Thursday.

However, the other Indian men's doubles pairs of Satwiksairaj Rankirredy and Chirag Shetty, Arjun M.R. and Ramchandran Shlok, M. Anilkumar Raju and Venkat Gaurav Prasad and Kona Tarun and Saurabh Sharma exited the competition.

India had high expectations from eighth seeds Satwik and Chirag but they lost to Thailand's Bodin Isara and Maneepong Jongjit 11-21, 15-21.

Satwik, however, is still in the tournament in the mixed doubles category. He and Ashwini Ponnappa will on Thursday face Japan's Yuki Kaneko and Mayu Matsumoto for a place in the last eight stage.

Meanwhile, second seed Sindhu opened her campaign against Bulgaria's Linda Zetchiri with an easy 21-8, 21-15 victory in 26 minutes. The Olympic 2016 silver medallist will meet Hong Kong's Yip Pui Yin on Thursday.

Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka lost to Japanese eighth seed Sayaka Sato, who won 21-13, 21-17 in 31 minutes.

In the men's singles competition, fourth seed Prannoy defeated Spain's Pablo Abian 21-16, 21-19, while Kashyap got past Canada's Jason Anthony Ho-Shue 21-15, 21-17.

However, Indian eighth seed Sameer Verma lost 18-21, 16-21 to Thailand's Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk in the opening round.

--IANS

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