BWF World Championships: HS Prannoy has his joy

Huelva (Spain), December 15

India’s HS Prannoy registered a straight-game win over Daren Liew of Malaysia to reach the pre-quarterfinals of the BWF World Badminton Championships here today.

In doing so, Prannoy joined two other Indians, Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen, in the last-16 stage of the showpiece tournament.

Prannoy beat the Malaysian 21-7 21-17 in a men’s singles second round match that lasted 42 minutes. He will play the winner of the match between Luis Enrique Penalver of Spain and Rasmus Gemke of Denmark in the next round.

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 the game easily.

The second game was more competitive and the two players were level at 6-6. But from there, Prannoy cruised to 16-11. The Malaysian narrowed the gap but Prannoy went up 19-16 before winning the second game.

In the women’s doubles, 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, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost to 11th-seeded Russians Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov 11-21 16-21 in a second round match that lasted 41 minutes. — PTI