The Indian contingent had mixed fortunes at the $120, 000 Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold in Basel on Wednesday as HS Prannoy and Subhankar Dey entered the third round of men's singles but Sameer Verma crashed out. The fifth seed and defending champion HS Prannoy faced some stiff resistance from Scotsman Kieran Merrilees but still managed to finish in straight games, eking out a 21-17, 21-19 win. The match lasted 43 minutes.
Prannoy has a tough proposition up next as he faces the 10th seed Qiao Bin of China. In their last meeting that happened just a week back at the All England Championships, the 24-year-old was two points away from defeat until he regrouped amazingly for a three-game victory. The Pullela Gopichand protégé really have to be on the alert right from the beginning this time and cannot afford to make the same mistakes if he has his eyes on a quarter-final berth.
Portuguese International winner Subhankar Dey too continues his great run as he needed just 33 minutes to get the better of Slovenian shuttler, Iztok Utrosa, 21-17, 21-18. The World No. 95 next faces the 46th ranked Kanta Tsuneyama for a place in the quarter-finals.
It, however, turned out to be a disappointing campaign for Sameer Verma. Seeded 13th, the Syed Modi International winner was presented with a decent draw but he failed to take advantage of it. Verma squandered a one-game lead to slump to a 21-16, 15-21, 13-21 defeat to Tsuneyama.
Meanwhile, India's sole women’s singles representative – 19-year-old Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli was no match for the seventh seed Fitriani Fitriani and lost 18-21, 8-21.
In men’s doubles, the India No. 1 pair of Many Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy went down fighting 15-21, 19-21 to the Chinese top seeds Chai Biao and Hong Wei. In mixed doubles, Rohan Kapoor and Sanjana Santosh bowed out with a 16-21, 19-21 to the French combine of Bastian Kersaudy and Lea Palermo.
The fourth seeded Indian mixed doubles duo of N Sikki Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra advanced to the pre-quarter-finals without touching the shuttle as their Swedish opponents – Nico Ruponen and Amanda Hogstrom gave a walkover.
