The teen men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty continue their impressive run at the $20,000 Yonex Sunrise Vietnam International Challenge in Hanoi, Vietnam as they booked their places in the quarter-finals on Thursday. The Indian pair seeded sixth, produced a stellar performance to defeat the Japanese combine of Yoshiki Tsukamoto and Shunsuke Yamamura, 21-17, 21-16 in 39 minutes. They will next meet the unseeded Indonesian duo of Irfan Fadhilah and Rian Swastedian for a place in the semi-finals.
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Rankireddy and Shetty had a breakthrough season last year when they won four titles and made it to the top 70 of the world. Currently ranked 59th, they are definitely the next Indian men's doubles pair to watch out for.
The campaign, however, came to an end for the rest of the Indian contingent. Siril, another rising junior, had his run in men's singles cut short in the third round by the fourth seed Panji Ahmad Maulana of Indonesia. The 12th seeded Indian went down 17-21, 14-21 in 30 minutes.
Much like Rankireddy and Shetty, the 17-year-old Verma is another talented junior, who has already started to show a lot of promise. The former junior World No. 1 made it to the final of the Russian Open Grand Prix last year and is looking to continue to make an impact on the senior circuit this year too.
The challenge also ended for the fourth-seeded men's doubles duo of Arjun MR and Shlok Ramchandran. The Indians missed out on a quarter-final spot by a whisker after being edged narrowly 23-21, 12-21, 22-24 by the unseeded local combine of Do Tuan Dac and Pham Hong Nam in a 55-minute battle.
Indian challenge begins at Polish Open on Friday
There will be Indian shuttlers in action this week at the $20, 000 Polish Open – an International Challenge tournament. The in-form Subhankar Dey will be aiming to win his third title of the season in the men’s singles category. He reigned supreme at the Iceland International and the Portuguese International earlier in the year and that catapulted him to 79th which is just eight spots away from his career-high ranking of 71st.
Besides him, the pair of Sanjana Santosh and Arathi Sara Sunil will be competing in the women’s doubles section.
