Sourabh, Guru dazzle their way into quarters

Madhya Pradesh lad Sourabh once again led the charge as he continued his giant-killing spree with a 21-19, 18-21, 21-11 upset win over seventh seed Kenichi Tago of Japan in the men’s singles second round. Sourabh’s compatriot Guru packed off Yuhan Tan of Belgium 21-13, 14-21, 21-13.

In the quarterfinals, Sourabh will take on world number one Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia, who beat Hyun Il Lee of South Korea 21-13, 21-17. Guru will clash with eighth seed Yun Hu of Hong Kong,  a 21-16, 21-14  winner over Hong Kong’s Yan Kit Chan. 

However, India number one P Kashyap found the going tough against world number two Taufik Hidayat and lost 17-21, 19-21. Hidayat will face Korean Park Sung Hwan, who overcame team-mate Wan Ho Shon 21-12, 21-17. Third seed Peter Gade also moved into last eight with a thumping 21-12, 21-17 win over Sho Sasaki of Japan in the second round.

The 20-year-old Sourabh, in the first game, failed to judge the shuttle well but caught up with Tago at 15-15 before wrapping it up at 21-19. Not ready to give up, the Japanese opened up a three-point lead at 12-9 in the second game and though Sourabh drew parity at 16-16, he surged ahead to bounce back.

In the decider, Sourabh stepped up the tempo and employed a more aggressive approach to open up a healthy 6-0 lead as Tago’s game crumbled. “The last match had given me a lot of confidence and I knew if I play well, I can beat him. I made sure that I didn’t repeat the last match’s mistakes and tried to control the game. We were equal in speed and power as we both are young and so it was tiring in the third game. But I didn’t want to defend so I went for my strokes in the third and was aggressive from the start,” Sourabh said.

While Sourabh was swift and fluent on the court, Gurusai was slow and sluggish but the Andhra Pradesh lad was still good enough for his Belgium rival. The world number 52 Indian didn’t give Tan any chance, he was erratic in the second game, conceding a lot of points through enforced errors as the 78th ranked Belgium fought back into contention.

Ashwini-Jwala lose
Eighth seeds Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa went down 20-22, 18-21 to Eei Hui Chin and Pei Tty Wong of Malaysia.

“There are former world number one, we played them thrice and all the three matches were close three-game matches. We have to be better prepared to beat them, hopefully we will beat them next time,” Ashwini said.

Among other, top seeds Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna of Japan beat Pradnya Gadre and Jyotshna Polavarapu 21-8, 21-16 in women’s doubles.

Peng-Liu through
In mixed doubles, fifth seeds Peng Soon Chan and Liu Ying Goh of Malaysia defeated Akshay Dewalkar and Pradnya Gadre 21-18, 22-24, 21-12 in a hard-fought battle, while seventh seeds Muhammad Rijal and Debby Susanto of Indondesia proved to good for Pranav Chopra and Prajakta Sawant as the Indian pair lost 11-21, 21-19 13-21 in another thrilling match.

Top seeds Kien Keat Koo and Boon Heong Tan of Malaysia defeated Attri Manu and Jishnu Sanyal 21-9, 21-14 and eighth seeded pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas bowed out after losing 19-21, 12-21 to Yohanes Rendy Sugiarto and Afiat Yuris Wirawan of Indonesia in the men’s doubles.