Badminton roundup: Pramod Bhagat, Manasi Joshi give no quarter
Tokyo, November 2
India’s Pramod Bhagat and Manasi Joshi topped their respective groups and advanced to the quarterfinals of the BWF Para Badminton World Championships here today.
After opening their title defence on a strong note in the SL3 (standing lower severe impairment) events on Tuesday, top seed Bhagat made light work of England’s William Smith 21-5 21-3, while Joshi saw off France’s Catherine Naudin 21-6 21-4 to top her group. Bhagat, who also won his men’s doubles SL3-SL4 match with Manoj Sarkar, is expected to face Japan’s Daisuke Fujihara in the semifinals.
Paralympics bronze medallist Sarkar and Nitesh Kumar have also advanced and will be facing France’s Mathieu Thomas and England’s William Smith, respectively.
Paralympics champion Krishna Nagar was stretched to the limit by American Miles Krajewski before winning 17-21 21-16 21-17 in a men’s singles SH6 Group D game. Nagar later admitted that his opponent had immensely improved his game in the past few months.
“He (Miles) has a different game now, he looks more powerful and has variety in his strokes. It’s nice to see that the competition is growing. I feel I must work harder now,” Nagar said.
The pair of Nithya Sre and Nagar also romped to an easy 21-8 21-9 win over Yasmina Eissa and Ivan Segura Escobar in a Group A mixed doubles SH6 match.
In the women’s singles, debutant Sre took just 15 minutes to dispatch Hong Kong’s Lam Ching Yung 21-4 21-4 in a Group B SH6 game. Manisha Ramadass also notched a 21-10 21-5 win over Spain’s Cristina Sandhez De Lechina Tejada in her SU5 match. — PTI
Satwik-Chirag in Rd 2
Saarbrucken (Germany): India’s star doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty beat Chinese Taipei’s Lee Yang and Lu Chen to progress to the men’s doubles second round of the Hylo Open Super 300 here today. The third-seeded Indians came from behind to beat Yang and Chen 19-21 21-19 21-16. HS Prannoy and the men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila gave walkovers to their respective rivals. Saina Nehwal lost 15-21 8-21 to Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan in the women’s singles.
