Kidambi Srikanth Advances in Badminton World Championships
Third seed Kidambi Srikanth breezed past Chinese Taipei's Hsu Jen Hao 21-14, 21-15 in the second round of the Badminton World Championships.
India's third-seeded badminton star Kidambi Srikanth progressed but 10th seeded Parupalli Kashyap was knocked out of the World Championships here on Wednesday.
Srikanth breezed past Chinese Taipei's Hsu Jen Hao 21-14, 21-15 in the second round, taking just 36 minutes to complete the demolition at the 9000-seater Istora Senayan.
Srikanth was dominant throughout and completed the cruising win, collecting 42 of the 71 points played in the match.
He is set to play against 13th seeded Hong Kong's Hu Yun in the next round.
Kashyap was knocked out of the tournament after losing 21-17, 13-21, 18-21 to Nguyen Tien Minh of Hong Kong in the second round in a match that stretched for an hour and five minutes.
However, India's women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnapa won, to keep the India flag flying high.
They won their second round contest 21-10, 21-18 against Chinese Taipei's duo of Hsieh Pei Chen and Wu Ti Jung.
The doubles specialists dominated the match from the very beginning and wrapped up the match in just 24 minutes, winning 42 of the 70 total points played.
They will next play the Japanese pair of Reika Kakiiwa and Miyuki Maeda in the next round.
The other Indian doubles pair of Pradnya Gadre and Sikki N. Reddy failed to emulate their senior teammates and went down fighting 17-21, 19-21 against Japan's Shizuka Matsuo and Mami Naito.
While Kashyap's loss was definitely a blow to the 18-member strong Indian contingent, the country's other singles player H.S. Prannoy kept his chances alive by winning his second round contest on Wednesday.
Eleventh-seed Prannoy took only 39 minutes to beat Ugandan player Edwin Ekiring 21-14 21-19 to sail into the third round. He won 42 of the 75 total points played in the game.
Prannoy will face seventh seeded Dane Viktor Axelsen in the quarter-final clash.
In the men's doubles section, India's Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Jerry Chopra went down 16-21, 12-21 against Danish duo of Mads Conrad-Petersen and Pieler Kolding.