Singapore, May 29 (IANS) India’s men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty moved into the quarterfinals of the Singapore Open, a BWF Super 750 badminton tournament while HS Prannoy and PV Sindhu crashed out in the round of 16 on Thursday.

Satwik-Chirag came back from a game down to beat Indonesia’s Sabar Karyaman Gutama and Muhammad Reza Pahlevi Isfahani 19-21, 21-16, 21-18 in one hour and 14 minutes.

The Indian pair will next face off with the world No. 1 and second-seed Malaysian duo of Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin for a place in the semifinals.

In men’s singles, HS Prannoy suffered a straight-game loss against Frenchman Christo Popov, facing a 16-21, 14-21 defeat in a match which lasted 42 minutes.

In the women’s singles, double Olympic medallist Sindhu also bowed out in the second round after losing to China’s Chen Yu Fei 9-21, 21-18, 16-21.

The mixed doubles duo of Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Gadde too suffered a round of 16 loss, going down to the second-seeded pair of Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet of Hong Kong 10-21, 16-21.

In the women’s doubles, Tressa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand will be in action later in the day.

Earlier in the women’s singles, Aakarshi Kashyap and Unnati Hooda failed to cross the first hurdle. Aakarshi lost to world No. 4 Han Yue 21-17, 13-21, 7-21 in a 58-minute battle while Unnati went down 21-13, 9-21, 15-21 to world No. 2 Wang Zhi Yi.

Anupama Upadhyaya also crashed out after losing 12-21, 16-21 to Sung Shuo Yun of Chinese Taipei while the women’s doubles pair of Vaishnavi Khadkekar and Alisha Khan were overwhelmed 8-21, 9-21 by Australia’s Gronya Somerville and Angela Yu.

In the men’s singles, India’s top-ranked men’s shuttler Lakshya Sen was forced to retire midway through his opening round match. Sen started strong against Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chun-Yi, taking the first game 21-15. But Lin came back to take the second 21-17. In the deciding game, Sen began to struggle with lower back pain and retired while trailing 5-13.

–IANS

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