Jayaram, Sai in Dutch quarters

Almere (Netherlands), Oct 8

Indian shuttlers Ajay Jayaram and R.M.V. Gurusaidutt advanced to the men’s singles quarterfinals with straight-game victories at the $50,000 Dutch Open Grand Prix here today.

Third seed Jayaram, who reached the Korea Open final last month, had a comfortable 21-14, 21-13 win in 31 minutes over Kasper Lehikoinen of Finland. Later, ninth seed Gurusaidutt defeated Ukraine’s Dmytro Zavadsky 21-12, 21-11 in 33 minutes in the third round.

Men’s doubles second seeds Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy reached the second round without raising their racquets after the withdrawal of Ruben Jille and Robin Tabeling,

However, it was the end of the road for P.C. Thulasi, who lost to Irish Chloe Magee 19-21, 23-21, 19-21 in an hour and 19 minutes in the women’s singles second round.

Later, the Scottish pair of Martin Campbell and Patrick Machugh took care of men’s doubles eight seeds Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar, winning 21-14, 21-18 in 43 minutes.

Earlier on Wednesday, Jayaram and Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Gurusaidutt won their respective first two matches to enter the third round.

Mumbai’s Jayaram first overcame local boy Mark Caljouw 19-21, 21-17, 21-18 in an hour and four minutes before beating German Fabian Roth 21-14, 21-10 in just under half an hour to proceed to the pre-quarterfinals.

Gurusaidutt later easily overcame Belgian Maxime Moreels 21-8, 21-9 in 27 minutes before beating Chinese Taipei’s Chun-Wei Chen 21-14, 21-19 in 38 minutes.

But fourth seed B. Sai Praneeth, who defeated Steffen Rasmussen 21-15, 21-11 in the first round, went down to Rasmus Fladberg, 15-21, 21-7, 12-21 in 48 minutes. — IANS