Sydney, May 10
B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma registered straight-game victories to progress to the quarterfinals of the men’s singles event at the Australian Open here on Thursday. Second seed Praneeth beat Indonesia’s Panji Ahmad Maulana 21-12 21-14, while fourth seed Verma eased past Takuma Ueda of Japan 21-16 21-12. Praneeth will next play seventh seed Lee Cheuk Yiu of Indonesia, while Verma will be up against China’s Lu Guangzu. It turned out to be a good day in the men’s doubles too as third seeds Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy defeated Korea’s Hyuk Gyun Choi and Kyung Hoon Park 21-17 21-17 to make it to the quarterfinals. Attri and Reddy will next meet seventh seeds Arjun MR and Ramchandran Shlok, who were made to work hard for their win. The duo was stretched by Japan’s Hiroki Okamura and Masayuki Onodera before it got through 21-15 25-23. India’s campaign in women’s singles ended after China’s Han Yue beat Jakka Vaishnavi Reddy 21-5 21-5. In the women’s doubles, too, it was end of the road for Indians after Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram lost 11-21 13-21 to Japan’s Miki Kashihara and Miyuki Kato.
