BWF World Championships 2019: Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, Sai Praneeth advance; Sameer Verma crashes out

Kidambi Srikanth
Kidambi Srikanth

While Kidambi Srikanth, Sai Praneeth and HS Prannoy advanced to the second round of the BWF World Championships 2019 in Basel on Monday, 10th seed Sameer Verma crashed out in his opener.

In doubles, the women's doubles pair of Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram too faced no hassle in progressing to the next round.

Seventh-seeded Srikanth, who is still searching for his first medal from the World Championships, made a sluggish start against the 86th ranked Nhat Nguyen. Having dropped the opening game to his Vietnamese opponent, the World No.10 found his rhythm and range and completely outplayed Nguyen in the decider to notch up a 17-21, 21-16, 21-6 win in 1 hour 7 minutes.

Up next for the Guntur-born ace is Israel's Misha Zilberman.

16th seeded Sai Praneeth continued from where he left last month and made a confident start to his campaign. Sai had made it to the semi-finals in Tokyo and the quarter-finals in Bangkok in July and carried that form to secure a comfortable 21-17, 21-16 victory over Canada's Jason Anthony Ho-Shue.

Sai will next take on World No. 39 Lee Dong Keun for a place in the third round.

HS Prannoy too struggled initially in his encounter with Finnish World No. 93 Eetu Heino. But the only unseeded Indian in the men's singles draw was able to successfully regroup to complete a 17-21, 21-10, 21-11 victory to set up a blockbuster second round face-off with five-time world champion Lin Dan.

Considering Prannoy already has two wins over the Chinese great, the Kerala shutttler would be fancying his chances against the 11th seed once again.

The only Indian casualty on the first day of this prestigious tournament was Sameer Verma, who squandered a good start to go down 21-15, 15-21, 10-21 to World No. 34 Loh Kean Yew.

Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram were the only Indians in action in doubles on Monday. They needed just 28 minutes to cruise into the second round with an effortless 21-10, 21-18 win over Diana Corleto Soto and Nikte Alejandra Sotomayor of Guatemala.

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Edited by Prasen Moudgal