HS Prannoy defeated former world No 2 Shi Yu Qi in a thrilling contest while defending champion PV Sindhu came through in straight games on Day 2 of the Swiss Open Super 300 in Basel.
There was, however, another early exit for Lakshya Sen as he continues to struggle for consistency on the BWF World Tour this year. He bowed out with a straight-games defeat (21-18, 21-11) to Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong.
There were also wins for second seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy / Chirag Shetty, former champion Srikanth Kidambi and national champion Mithun Manjunath.
Prannoy’s match against Shi, the All England finalist last week, lived up to its billing on Wednesday as a high quality clash against two top 10 players. World No 9 Prannoy prevailed 21-17, 19-21, 21-17 against Shi, who returned to the top 10 on the back of his All England run.
Prannoy will next face French rising star Christo Popov.
Srikanth faced a tricky opening test against explosive Chinese southpaw Weng Hong Yang but came through in three games 21-16, 15-21, 21-18. The Indian took a hard-fought opening game before Weng put together a run of 11 straight points at the end of game 2 and start of game 3 combined. Srikanth however found his footing again to close the match out in a nervy finish.
Srikanth would have faced Sen in the next round but the CWG 2022 gold medallist continued to struggle for results. It will now be Srikanth vs Lee Cheuk Yiu.
Second seeds Satwik-Chirag didn’t waste much time in seeing off their opening round challenge while Mithun also came through a relatively straightforward opening round test.
Sindhu, who won the title here last year and reached the final year before, got off to a steady start, defeating Swiss national Jenjira Stadelmann in straight games, winning 21-9, 21-16. The opening game was a breeze before the 23-year-old Swiss started pulling off some aggressive rallies early in the second game to put Sindhu under pressure. But the Indian was steady enough to close it out without any hassle. She faces Indoenesia’s Putri Kusuma Wardani next.
This was, in fact, Sindhu’s first win of the BWF World Tour season after three first-round exits earlier.
There were defeats for Malvika Bansod, Kiran George, Aakarshi Kashyap, Sikki Reddy-Rohan Kapoor, Sikki Reddy-Arathi Sara Sunil on the day as well.
Here’s a look at all the Indian results from day two of action:
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