Indian shuttlers had a mixed day at the Australian Open 2024 with the top male player and fifth seed H.S. Prannoy and women’s eighth seed Aakarshi Kashyap advancing into the second round in their respective categories on Wednesday.
Former Thomas Cup winner Prannoy, who is ranked 33rd in BWF World Rankings, is the highest-ranked Indian player in this event and defeated Coelho Ygor of Brazil in straight games in the event being played at Quaycentre in Sydney.
Prannoy defeated the Brazilian 21-10, 23-21 in 47 minutes to reach the men’s singles second round of the BWF World Tour Super 500 Series event with a prize fund of USD 420,000.
Sameer Verma and Kiran George also progressed to the second round while Mithun Manjunath, Ravi, Abhishek Yeligar, Raghu Mariswamy and S.Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian were eliminated in the first round of action.
Sameer Verma defeated Australia’s Ricky Tang 21-10, 21-10 while Kiran George got the better of Xiaodong Sheng 21-17, 21-10. Manjunath lost to Farhan Alvi of Indonesia 17-21, 17-21; Ravi Lost to Lin Chun-Yi of Chinese Taipei 6-21, 13-21, Yeligar succumbed to Misha Zilberman of Israel 9-21, 15-21; Raghu lost to sixth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 6-21, 8-21 while Shankar Muthusamy went down in three games against third seed Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia 16-21, 21-18, 10-21 in a hard-fought contest that lasted just over an hour.-
In women’s singles, Aakarshi Kashyap defeated Ukraine’s Polina Buhrova 21-14, 21-11in just 36 minutes to advance to the second round. In other women’s singles matches, Anupama Upadhyaya defeated Ling Ching Wong of Malaysia 21-14, 23-31 while Malvika Bansod defeated compatriot Keyura Mopati 21-10.21-8.
Samiya Imad Farooqui of India went down to Yu Po Pai of Chinese Taipei 23-21, 13-21, 22-24 in a well-fought encounter in 63 minutes.
In mixed doubles, the Indian pair of B. Sumeeth Reddy and Sikki Reddy defeated Malaysia’s Oi Tein Wong and Chiew Sien Lim 21-17, 21-19 but Tarun Kona and Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli lost to Malaysia’s Pang Ron Hoo and Su Yin Cheng 6-21, 11-21.
In men’s doubles, Abhimanyu Rajain and Aman Nandal gave a walkover to Aneesh Nirmal and Stephen Sam Emmanuel of Australia in their first-round match.
