B Sai Praneeth made a strong comeback after falling behind to beat compatriot and fifth seed Sameer Verma in the men’s singles quarter-finals of the Yonex Sunrise India Open 2019, being played in New Delhi on Thursday, in a tough three-match match.
Former Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap also managed to make it to the last eight with a straight game win at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall of Indira Gandhi Stadium, but Riya Mukherjee lost despite facing a tough challenge.
World number 20 Praneeth beat world number 15 Sameer 18-21, 21-16, 21-15 in a match that lasted one hour and 12 minutes. The unseeded and world number 55 Kashyap, however, did not sweat much during his 21–11, 21–13 win over Thailand’s Tenongsek Sensombunsuk.
Kashyap said after the match, “It is not easy to play against him. You can’t expect what kind of game he will show but I was well prepared for him today. ‘This is Praneeth’s fourth win in six matches against Sameer. He said after the match, “Sameer played very well but I did better in the rally and also made mistakes in the second and third games which benefited. I may have to face Srikanth in the next round and this match is not going to be easy at all. ‘
In the quarter-finals, Praneeth will face the winner of the match between third seed Kidambi Srikanth and China’s Lu Guangzhou. Kashyap will take on the winner of the match between compatriot Indian Mascot Dey and Wang Xu Wei of Chinese Taipei.
Riya gave a tough fight to Mia Blickfeldt of Denmark in a three-game match but could not stop the eighth seed from winning 21-8 17-21 21-13.
