Taipei Open: Prannoy, Kashyap sail into pre-quarters

Indian shuttlers HS Prannoy and Parupalli Kashyap cruised into the men's singles pre-quarterfinals of the Taipei Open with straight game wins over their respective rivals here on Wednesday.

World number nine Prannoy hardly broke a sweat as he took just 26 minutes to dispatch local shuttler Lin Yu-hsien 21-11 21-10 in the opening round of the BWF World Tour Super 300 tournament.

The third-seeded Prannoy, who claimed the Malaysia Masters Super 300 title last month, will next take on Indonesia's Tommy Sugiarto in the men's singles second round. Former Commonwealth Games gold medallist Kashyap too notched up an easy 21-15 21-16 over Germany's Samuel Hsiao. He will take on local favourite Su Li Yang in the pre-quarterfinals.

National champion Mithun Manjunath put up a splendid fight before going down to second-seed and local favourite Chou Tien Chen 18-21 21-14 16-21 in a one-hour 11 minutes battle.

Tanya Hemanth was the lone Indian to win in the women's singles as she handed a 21-7 21-17 loss to Agnes Korosi of Hungary. But a tough second round awaits the 19-year-old Indian as she is up against World Championship and Olympic silver medallist Tai Tzu Ying, the tournament top-seed.

In the mixed doubles, Sikki Reddy and Rohan Kapoor beat compatriots Navaneeth Bokka and Priya Konjengbam 21-14 21-17 in all-Indian tie. Sikki and Rohan will meet Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Lin Xiao Min in the pre-quarters. However, it was the end of the road for S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian, Kiren George, Meiraba Luwang Maisnam, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, Ruthvika Shivani Gadde and Akarshi Kashyap. Subramanian provided some resistance in the opening game but was completely outplayed in the second game by sixth seed Japanese shuttler Kanta Tsunyama to go down 13-21 5-21 in his men's singles opening round.

Kiren, on the other hand, fought hard before going to Malaysia's Leoong Jun Hao 20-22 21-12 9-21 while Meiraba Luwang Maisnam lost to fifth seed Hong Kong shuttler NG Ka Long Angus 18-21 17-2. Sathish was handed a straight game (10-21 10-21) defeat by local favourite Chi Yu Jen.

Among women, Gadde lost to local shuttler Chiu Pin-Chian 12-21 5-21 while Akarshi squandered a one game lead to lose 21-10 16-21 11-21 to Huang Yu-Hsun.