Young Indian shuttlers reach second round of Malaysia Masters

Young Indian shuttlers Harsheel Dani, Pratul Joshi and Hemanth M. Gowda advanced to the second round of the season-opening Malaysia Masters Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament here on Tuesday.

Pratul Joshi clinched the Bahrain International title last year.

Young Indian shuttlers Harsheel Dani, Pratul Joshi and Hemanth M. Gowda advanced to the second round of the season-opening Malaysia Masters Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament here on Tuesday.

The 20-year-old Harsheel, who reached the quarterfinals at Syed Modi International Grand Prix Gold last year in Lucknow, saw off Malaysia’s Zii Jia Lee 21-19, 21-17 in little over half an hour.

Pratul, who clinched the Bahrain International title last year, saw off Singapore’s Zin Rei Ryan Ng 15-21, 21-16, 24-22 in a hard-fought battle in the men’s singles competition.

Unheralded Hemanth M. Gowda also reached the second round, beating Indonesia’s Yehezkiel Fritz Mainaky 21-14, 21-15 in another match.

Among others, Siril Verma suffered a narrow 10-21, 21-18, 17-21 loss to Thailand’s Pannawit Thongnuam, while Abhishek Yelegar lost 13-21, 14-21 to 13th seed Zulfadli Zulkiffli of Malaysia and Rahul Yadav Chittaboina suffered a 16-21, 11-21 loss to Chinese Taipei’s Hsueh Hsuan Yi.