Praneeth, Anand and Srikanth qualify for main draw in France

Indian shuttlers B Sai Praneeth, Anand Pawar and K Srikanth reached the main draw of the French Super Series after notching up contrasting victories in the men's singles qualifiers here today.

Seeded fourth in the qualifiers, Praneeth registered a 21-14 21-15 win over Finland's Ville Lang in the opening round and then prevailed over local player Lucas Corvee 21-12 21-15 in the second round.

Anand Pawar, however, had a difficult match early on when he had to toil hard to get it across local shuttler Brice Leverdez 21-17 23-21 in the first match and then dig deep to eke out a thrilling 16-21 21-11 21-19 win over Joachim Persson of Denmark in the next round.
 

Srikanth too defeated Scot Evans 21-19 21-15 first and then notched up a hard-fought victory over compatriot Sourabh Varma 18-21 21-18 21-11 to seal his place in the main draw.

Sourabh had won 21-8 21-12 against Matthieu Lo Ying in the opening round. Indian young shuttler H S Prannoy could not get across the first round after his gallant fight ended with a 21-13 18-21 14-21 loss to Lucas Corvee in the first round.

In the men's doubles category, Indian pair of Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy B suffered a 7-21 8-21 loss to Denmark's Mads Conrad-Petersen and Mads Pieler Kolding in the qualifiers.