BWF World Championships 2019: HS Prannoy upsets Lin Dan; Sai Praneeth advances

HS Prannoy caused a huge upset by knocking out the 11th seed Lin Dan while Sai Praneeth smoothly advanced to the third round of the BWF World Championships 2019 in Basel, Switzerland on Tuesday.

Prannoy has had a couple of wins over the Chinese great in the past but lost their most recent encounter at the Australian Open this year. But on Day 2 of the World Championships, Prannoy looked determined to bring his best level.

Storming out of the blocks, the Kerala shuttler took the first game 21-11 riding on a barrage of attacking shots. However, his pace and intensity fell off in the second game which allowed the five-time winner to stage a comeback and pocket the game with a score of 21-13.

Prannoy was able to find his form once again in the decider and thoroughly outplayed his legendary opponent on his way to a 21-11, 13-21, 21-7 win in 1 hour 2 minutes.

The Indian has a tough challenge in his quest for a quarter-final berth for he faces the top seed and World No. 1 Kento Momota next.

Later, 16th seed Sai Praneeth too joined his Pullela Gopichand Academy mate in the Round of 16 courtesy of a comfortable 21-16, 21-15 win over Korea's 39th ranked Lee Dong Keun. Sai next takes on sixth seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in the third round.

India also notched up a few doubles wins on Tuesday. The men's doubles pairs of Manu Attri-B Sumeeth Reddy and MR Arjun-Shlok Ramchandran both made it to the second round. While the former made short work of Frenchmen Thom Gicquel and Ronan Labar 21-13, 21-13, the latter prevailed over local pair of Tobias Kuenzi and Oliver Schaller 21-14, 21-16.

The women's doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy got a walkover into Round 2 when the Chinese Taipei combine of Chang Ching Hui and Yang Ching Tun withdrew.