Day 3 of the $65,000 Yonex Canada Open turned out to be a miserable day for India’s singles shuttlers as all of them crashed out in the pre-quarterfinals. Second seed HS Prannoy, who was the biggest hope in singles, squandered a game lead to slump to a 21-17, 14-21, 13-21 defeat to the ninth seed Jin Hyeok Jeon of Korea in a battle that lasted 1 hour 1 minute.
It was the same story for Abhishek Yelegar, who too snatched a game but went down fighting to the fifth seed Pablo Abian, 15-21, 23-21, 14-21.
Karan Rajan Rajarajan, who won the Guatemala Futures title last week, too could not give much resistance to the teenaged Japanese player, Koki Watanabe and succumbed to an 18-21, 14-21 defeat. Watanabe had earlier accounted for the Commonwealth Games gold medallist Parupalli Kashyap in the second round.
In women’s singles, South Asian Games gold medallist Ruthvika Shivani Gadde put up a brave fight and was within inches of upsetting the second seed and World No. 18 Aya Ohori of Japan. In the end, the Japanese showed tremendous resilience and guts to pull through, 21-13, 17-21, 21-19 in 55 minutes.
Ohori has clinched the China Masters title this year.
Doubles teams bring delight
Only two doubles teams survived the carnage and sealed quarter-final spots. Third-seeded men’s doubles team of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, who won this title last year, carved out a hard-fought 21-17, 17-21, 21-13 win over the Korean pair of Choi Solgyu and Jae-Hwan Kim.
Attri and Reddy have struggled mightily since winning this title. They have even slipped to outside 40 in the current world rankings and have had to relinquish their India No. 1 position to the teenaged team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty. They came into the Canada Open on an eight-match losing streak and seem to have finally found their confidence back.
In mixed doubles, second seeds Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy needed just 26 minutes to dismiss the Dutch duo of Robin Tabeling and Cheryl Seinen, 21-11, 21-17.
The only disappointment in doubles was the 9-21, 8-21 loss of Tarun Kona and Meghana Jakkampudi at the hands of the Japanese pair of Kohei Gondo and Wakana Nagahara.
