Prannoy stuns top seed Jorgensen, Saina, Srikanth reach QF

Rising Indian shuttler H S Prannoy scripted the biggest upset of the day at the Yonex Sunrise Indian Super Series, stunning top seed and World No.2 Jan Jorgensen of Denmark to enter the quarterfinals of the USD 275,000 event, here.
Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth also won their respective matches to make it to the last-eight stage.
But it was Prannoy's high-voltage encounter that saw some spectacular strokes, a contentious line call and India coach Pullela Gopichand losing his cool, even as the 22-year-old player came out with flying colours with a 18-21 21-14 21-14 win over the All England finalist at the Siri Fort Sports Complex.

In the adjacent court, Saina Nehwal defeated birthday girl Ruthvika Shivani Gadde 21-16 21-17 but not after the national champion posed a few questions to the All England finalist, especially in the second game where she was leading 13-10 at one stage.
Later in the day, Srikanth saw off Japan's Kento Momota 21-12 15-21 21-15, while RMV Gurusaidutt prevailed over young Sameer Verma 18-21 21-19 21-18 in a hour's match.
Among other Indians in fray, Commonwealth games champion Parupalli Kashyap paid for his series of errors as he went down 17-21 11-21 to China's Xue Song in another pre-quarters match.

Indonesia Masters Prannoy, who had beaten Jorgensen in 2013 Japan Open, played a fast paced game and went neck-and-neck with Jorgensen 17-17 before the Dane marched ahead. The Indian was finding it difficult to counter Jorgensen's better forehand returns.

However, in the second game, the Indian fought back from 4-7 down to slowly distance himself for the German Open winner and eventually bounced back into the contest when the Dane hit wide.
With the crowd vociferously rooting for him, Prannoy changed his tactics in the decider. He caught hold the shuttles early and rode on his accurate strokeplay to lead 9-3 at one stage. Jorgensen, however, fought back to narrow the gap to 9-11 at the break.

After the break, Prannoy kept the pressure on the Dane and was leading 13-11 when a contentious line call brought the match to a halt. It was a return from the Indian which had caught Jorgensen off-guard but the shuttle was called in by the line umpire.
Prannoy immediately requested for a referral but he was denied by the chair umpire, who overruled the decision and awarded the point to Jorgensen.