Ajay through, Kashyap and Gurusaidutt fails in first day encounter of Yonex Open 2013

After the qualification stage of the tournament, it was the turn for Men’s Singles main round matches. Ajay Jayaram started with a winning note in the initial phase of the main round in the Men’s Singles category. Amongst the three Indian clashes this evening, in the first match Ajay defeated Kazumasa Sakai of Japan by 21-16 and 21-11. The match lasted 37 minutes.

In the first game, Japanese player dominated in the first half but after 9-9 on board, Ajay took the lead and continued his performance to win the first game by 21-16. In the second game he moved ahead with confidence and dominated throughout the game. Kazumasa proved to be an easy opponent in the second game and lost it by 21-11.

In the second match of the same category, Kashyap Parupalli lost to Malaysian Chong Wei Lee by 20-22 and 12-21. Kashyap started with a marginal lead in the start of the match but Chong soon rushed to the favoring equation of 15-6. In the last phase of this game Kashyap fought well but only managed to level the game by 20-20. Soon after that, Chong went for the last two decisive points to win the game. In the following game Chong dominated and defeated the Indian smasher by a big margin of 9 points.

The third match also went against the favour of India, as Gurusaidutt was defeated by Chen Yuekun of China by 9-21 and 14-21. This was a clash between the 24^th ranked Indian and 29^th ranked Chinese. The first game all belonged to the Chinese as Gurusaidutt never appeared in leading position as the game progressed. The second game was almost the replica of the first one and Chen won the game by 21-14. The match lasted only half an hour.

The ending session of day one i.e. 22^nd October, 2013 in Yonex Open ended with mixed moods for Indian fans as only Ajay Jayaram managed to progress to the next level out of three contestants.