Bangkok
Indian badminton players PV Sindhu and Sameer Verma made it to the quarter-finals of the Thailand Open Super 1000 tournament with a straight game win here on Thursday but HS Prannoy were eliminated from the competition. Olympic silver medalist Sindhu defeated world number 92 Malaysian Kisona Selvadurai 21-10, 21-12, 21-10, 21-12 in just 35 minutes in the second round one-sided match.

In the next round, Sindhu will face the winner of the match between Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand and Sung Ji Hyun of Korea. Sindhu said, ‘The first game was very easy and in the second I had to play with the wind and control my stroke a lot. In the second game I made some easy mistakes and these were mistakes that I should not have made. There was a lot of wind during the second game and I had to play with caution.

He said, ‘I was remembering last week’s tournament and every score was very important for me. We all win and lose, so I took the outcome of last week quite positively and this week I emerged stronger. World number 31 Indian player Sameer defeated Rasmus Gameke of Denmark 21-12 21-9 in just 39 minutes. This is Samir’s third win in the world against No. 17 Gameke. Earlier, two matches were played between these two players, in which the Indian player won.

Sameer will next face third seed Andre Antonsen of Denmark, who got a walkover. Sameer said after the match, ‘I was absolutely confident of winning. I came in with good preparations. The next match will be Denmark’s Andres Antonsen. I am full of confidence. Let’s see what happens. It will be a tough match but I will show my best game.

Meanwhile, the mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa also reached the quarter-finals after beating Germany’s Mark Lamphus and Isabel Hettrich 22–20, 14–21, 21–16. Satwik then teamed up with Chirag Shetty in the men’s doubles to beat Korea’s seventh seeded pair of Choi Solgyu and Seo Seung Jae 21-18, 23-21. HS Prannoy however failed to cross the second hurdle in the men’s singles.

A day after defeating Asian Games champion Jonathan Christie, he lost to Malaysia’s Daren Liu 17-21, 18-21. The pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila also bowed out of the tournament with a 9-21, 11-21, 9-21, 11-21 loss to England against Ben Lane and Sean Wendy. Before this, there was no one in front of Sameer, who showed a good game from the beginning.

The Indian led 3–0 and at the break he was ahead by six points. Gameke tried his best but could not stop Sameer who won the first game easily. In the second game, Gameke took a modest lead of 3–1 and then 5–3 but Sameer did not look back after scoring 6-6.