Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap continues his brilliant run at the $120,000 JEJU VICTOR 2016 Korea Masters Championships as he keeps on clawing his way back to the higher echelons of the sport after a long knee surgery-induced layoff. The 30-year-old put up a superb show of guts on Wednesday when he knocked out the fourth seed and World No. 32 Wang Tzu Wei of Korea in a narrow three-game win.
The Indian carried on that form into the pre-quarter-finals on Thursday to book his berth in the last-eight stage. Kashyap prevailed over the 277th ranked Zhou Zeqi of China 21-11, 13-21, 21-8 in a match that lasted 45 minutes.
Next up for him is Jeon Hyeok Jin of Korea, who is seeded sixth at this Grand Prix Gold event.
Kashyap is in the midst of his comeback from a season ravaged with a knee surgery that robbed him of a chance to play at the Rio Olympics.
Nandagopal-Ponnappa upset eighth seeds at Irish Open
Meanwhile at the Irish Open, K Nandagopal and Ashwini Ponnappa had a great day as they notched up two back-to-back wins to advance to the quarter-finals. The Indians began their challenge by upsetting the eighth-seeded Danes Alexander Bond and Ditte Soby 21-17, 14-21, 21-15 and then followed it up by beating the Russian combine of Olga Morozova and Alexandr Zinchenko, 21-11, 21-16.
In the last-eight match, they will meet the Dutch pair of Robin Tabeling and Cheryl Seinen.
In some of the other early matches, India’s Subhankar Dey bowed out of men’s singles after a 7-21, 15-21 loss to Scott Evans of Ireland.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy continues to shine in Bangladesh
16-year-old Satwiksairaj Rankireddy continues his superfast rise in the badminton world. He won both his men’s doubles as well as mixed doubles matches on Thursday to reach the semi-finals in both categories. In mixed, he and K Maneesha, who are the top seeds, comfortably beat the local pair of Tushar Krishna Roy and Erina Parvin Ratna, 21-8, 21-9.
In men’s doubles, the India International Challenge winners Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had no problems in dismissing home hope Mohammad Salman Khan and Tushar Krishna Roy, 21-10, 21-9.
In men’s singles, fourth seed Shreyansh Jaiswal and fifth seed Aditya Joshi will now face each other in the quarters.
