The Indian badminton women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, on Thursday, entered the quarter-finals of the 2024 German Open Super 300 in Mülheim.
The Indians defeated Czech Republic’s Sona Horinkova and Katerina Zuzakova 21-10, 21-11 in straight games to advance further in the competition.
Treesa and Gayatri, ranked 23rd in the world, were never under pressure as they cruised to take the opening game 21-10 without breaking a sweat.
The world No 141 ranked Czechs were no match for the Indians who pocketed the second game 21-11 to wrap up the match in just 28 minutes.
The fourth seeded pair will now take on China’s Li Yi Jing and Luo Xu Min in the quarter-finals on Friday.
Kashyap, Sathish lose
Treesa and Gayatri are now the only Indians left active at the German Open as Aakarshi Kashyap, in women’s singles, and men’s singles shuttler Sathish Karunakaran both bowed out in the Round of 16 following loses in their respective matches.
Kashyap, who was up against a higher ranked Mia Blichfeldt of Demark, went down 13-21, 14-21 in 40 minutes.
The Indian led 12-10 in the opening game, but completely lost the plot as Blichfeldt levelled proceedings at 12-12 before racing away with it. There was no fighting back from that point for Kashyap, who was outplayed completely in the second round.
Meanwhile, Sathish went down to Nhat Nguyen of Ireland 18-21, 22-24 after a tough battle which lasted an hour and two minutes.
The 22-year-old Indian gave a good account of himself, but Nguyen managed to handle his nerves better at crucial junctures to win the match in straight games.
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