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.
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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.
