Prannoy, women’s doubles pair in Worlds pre-quarters

Prannoy defeated his Malaysian opponent 21-7, 21-17 in a men’s singles second-round match that lasted 42 minutes. Prannoy joined two other Indians, Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen, in the men’s singles Round-of-16 of the showpiece tournament. Prannoy faced little resistance from Liew in the first game.

The Indian took eight straight points from 8-5 to 16-5 before pocketing the opener easily. The second game was relatively more competitive and the two players were level at 6-6. 

But from there, Prannoy never fell behind as he cruised to a 16-11 lead. However, his Malaysian rival narrowed the gap but Prannoy was up 19-16 before securing the second game and the match.

The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy entered the pre-quarterfinals after a stunning 21-11, 9-21, 21-13 win over the Chinese duo of Liu Xuan Xuan and Xia Yu-Ting in a second-round match.

In the men’s doubles category, however, the Indian pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost to the 11th-seeded Russian pair of Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov 11-21, 16-21 in a one-sided second-round match.