Dutch Junior 2018: Krishna Prasad Garaga and Dhruv Kapila reach semi-finals

The rising men’s doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Dhruv Kapila became the only Indians to reach the semi-finals at the ongoing Yonex Dutch Junior held in Haarlem, Netherlands on Saturday. The pair, who is seeded third at this Junior International Grand Prix tournament, needed 27 minutes to prevail over the French combine of Fabien Delrue and William Villeger.

They will next take on the Japanese pair of Hiroki Midorikawa and Hiroki Nakayama for a place in Sunday’s summit clash.

Garaga and Kapila have been touted as India’s next best hope in men’s doubles for quite some time. The two are tied in the eighth place in the world junior rankings.

At the Asia Junior Championships last year, they made it to the quarter-finals while in the World Championships, they reached the pre-quarter-finals. At the Dutch Junior last year, they finished as the runners-up being the top seeded team and would surely aim to go one better this time.

However, the 17-year-old Garaga did not have the same good fortunes in the mixed doubles section. He and UK Mithula bowed out in the third round in a hard-fought 15-21, 21-17, 11-21 loss to Indonesia’s Leo Rolly Carnado and Metya Inayah Cindiani.

In women’s singles, India’s promising shuttler, Aakarshi Kashyap failed to do much against the top seed Pattarasuda Chaiwan and succumbed to a 12-21, 17-21 loss in 28 minutes in the pre-quarter-finals.

11th seeded Purva Barve went one round further, but could not continue her journey after that. The Pune girl showed her exceptional fighting skills to knock out the seventh seeded Reka Madarasz 21-15, 13-21, 21-14 on her way to the quarter-finals. In the last-eight stage, she was outclassed 13-21, 7-21 by the fourth seeded Chasinee Korepap.

In men’s singles, the ninth seeded Kartikey Gulshan Kumar was beaten 17-21, 7-21 by the top seeded Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand.

In men’s doubles, Vishnu Vardhan Goud Panjala and Srikrishna Sai Kumar Podile could not join compatriots Garaga and Kapila in the last-four stage as they went down 18-21, 11-21 to China’s Weikeng Liang and Shang Yichen in the quarter-finals.