Four Indian shuttlers in France tourney's quarterfinals

Third seed Kashyap beat Dane Martin Bille Larsen 21-10 21-13, while Sayali pipped fourth seed Camilla Sorensen 21-18 16-21 21-16 in their respective pre-quarterfinal matches yesterday.

Kashyap, who finished runners up in the Spanish Open last week, will take on eighth seeded Dane Christian Lind Thomsen, who beat local favourite Matthieu Lo Ying Ping 21-10 21-9.

On the other hand, Spanish Open winner Sayali will cross swords with Indonesian Atu Rosalina, who beat Austrian Simone Prutsch 21-10 21-11.
Among other Indians, Aditya Prakash rallied to beat Rune Massing of Netherlands 19-21 21-18 21-18 and book a quarterfinal berth.
Aditya also beat German Andreas Heinz 16-21 21-10 21-9 in his opening tie in the main draw.

Sixth seed Neha Pandit also survived a difficult first round match against Barbara Matias (21-14 23-21) before defeating German Claudia Vogelgsang 18-21 21-16 21-11 in the second round to set up a clash with third seed Kati Tolmoff of Spain in women's singles.

However, it was curtains for Ajay Jayaram and RMV Gurusaidutt in the men's singles.
Ajay lost 9-21 15-21 to Dmytro Zavadsky, while Gurusaidutt went down 21-12 18-21 16-21 against second seed Rajiv Ouseph in his respective second match.

In women's singles, Dhanya Nair lost her first round match against Valerie St-Jacques of Canada 21-14 19-21 18-21 to crash out of the tournament.
Meanwhile, the Indian pair of Tarun Kona and Arun Vishnu notched up consecutive wins in the men's doubles category to reach the last eight stage.
The duo first beat the French pair of Baptiste Careme and Sylvain Grosjean 21-18 14-21 21-18 and then survived a scare from Vitalij Durkin and Nikolay Nikolaenko of Russia 21-16 13-21 26-24. They will next face second seed Rasmus Bonde and Mikkel Delbo Larsen of Denmark.
However, in women's doubles, Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan suffered a 21-18 20-22 19-21 defeat against Indonesian-Chinese pair of Ruben Gordown and Xin Xu Bing, while Shruti Kurian and Tarun Kona went down 9-21 14-21 to the Polish pair of Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Kostiuczyk.