BWF World Championships: Prannoy through to pre-quarters

India's H S Prannoy registered a straight-game win over Daren Liew of Malaysia to reach the pre-quarterfinals of the BWF World Badminton Championships here on Wednesday.

Published : Dec 15, 2021 15:59 IST

India's H S Prannoy registered a straight-game win over Daren Liew of Malaysia to reach the pre-quarterfinals of the BWF World Badminton Championships. (File Photo)

India's H S Prannoy registered a straight-game win over Daren Liew of Malaysia to reach the pre-quarterfinals of the BWF World Badminton Championships here on Wednesday.

Prannoy beat his Malaysian opponent 21-7, 21-17 in a men's singles second-round match that lasted 42 minutes.

He will play the winner of another second-round match between Luís Enrique Penalver of Spain and Rasmus Gemke of Denmark in the pre-quarterfinals.

Prannoy joined two other Indians, Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen, in the men's singles pre-quarterfinals of the showpiece tournament.

Prannoy faced little resistance from Liew in the first game. From 8-5, the Indian took eight straight points to zoom to 16-5 before pocketing it easily.

 

The second game was more competitive, and the two players were levelled at 6-6. But from there, Prannoy never fell behind as he cruised to 16-11.

The Malaysian narrowed the gap, but Prannoy was up 19-16 before pocketing the second game and the match.

The women's doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy also entered the pre-quarterfinals after a hard-fought 21-11, 9-21, 21-13 win over the Chinese pair of Liu Xuan Xuan and Xia Yu-Ting in a 51-minute second-round match.

In the men's doubles, however, the Indian pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost to 11th seeded Russian pair of Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov 11-21 16-21 in a second-round match that lasted 41 minutes.

On Tuesday, defending champion P V Sindhu reached the women's singles pre-quarterfinals with an easy 21-7, 21-9 win over Martina Repiska of Slovakia. Sindhu had got a first-round bye. She will face Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand in the pre-quarterfinals.