Indian teenager Samiya Imad Farooqui produced one of the best results of her career so far as she defeated Malaysian No 2 Kisona Selvaduray in straight games in the Taipei Open Super 300 tournament on Wednesday.
With the top stars from the country preparing for the Commonwealth Games campaign coming up, India’s second rung of shuttlers are in Taipei.
In a day of mixed results for the Indian contingent, Malvika Bansod and Krishna Prasad-Vishnuvardhan lost in the opening round. Bansod’s result against world No 171 Liang Ting Yu was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the day for India while Krishna-Vishnu, seeded seventh, lost against a pair currently outside the top 150 but former top 30 in Law Cheuk Him and Lee Chun Hei Reginald.
Men’s singles sees the biggest presence for India with third seed Parupalli Kashyap leading the way, and youngsters Kiran George, Priyanshu Rajawat and Mithun Manjunath joining the veteran in the second round.
Surviving a scare were fifth seeds Dhruv Kapila and MR Arjun as they squandered match points in Game 2 but won in three games.
Here are the results of India’s matches on Wednesday:
More details of Indian matches through the day in our thread here:
Among the second round matches to look forward to is a stiff test for Ishaan Bhatnagar and Sai Pratheek against Olympic champions Lee Yang and Wang Chi Lin. Priyanshu Rajawat, part of India’s Thomas Cup winning squad, will face top seed Chou Tien Chen.
Farooqui’s reward for her big win is a match against world No 42 Wen Chi Hsu.
All of India’s matches are against Taipei shuttlers.
Here is the list of Indian matches scheduled for Thursday:
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