INDIA OPEN 2015 R16 – Singles upsets continue

The home contingent at the Yonex-Sunrise India Open Superseries continued to mount surprises on Day 3 with the biggest upset yet when world #17 H. S. Prannoy offed top seed Jan O. Jorgensen.

By Don Hearn.  Photos: Yves Lacroix for Badmintonphoto (live)

It wasn’t the greatest of starts for Team India overall at their home Superseries event but its men’s singles players have provided some highlights, most notably at the expense of Danish shuttlers.  The first round of main draw action began dismally for India with eleven straight losses in mixed doubles.  While a handful of doubles pairs survived until the second round, Wednesdays’ highlight for home fans was young Sameer Verma’s victory over world #9 Hans-Kristian Vittinghus.

Thursday provided even more delight as on the TV court, H. S. Prannoy fought back from a game down to oust top seed Jan O. Jorgensen (pictured) in three. Prannoy will next take on Denmark’s sole remaining singles player, Viktor Axelsen.

India’s best shuttler Kidambi Srikanth also won a three-game battle against the always dangerous Kento Momota of Japan and he could be the beneficiary of one of the other upsets as 7th seed Wang Zhengming lost out to Takuma Ueda (pictured).  It was Ueda who beat Srikanth in the first round of last year’s India Open, an outcome that was not an upset at the time.

R. M. V. Gurusaidutt may have spoiled Sameer Verma’s party a day after the latter’s big upset but to continue, he will have to do the same to China’s Xue Song.  The 21-year-old has already beaten French Open champion Chou Tien Chen and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Parupalli Kashyap.

Japan was on both sides of the upsets on Thursday.  Ueda was punching above his weight class in taking down Wang but the other upset actually came when Japan’s low-ranked mixed pairing of top ten shuttlers took down reigning Asian Champions Lee Chun Hei / Chau Hoi Wah of Hong Kong.  Hayakawa and Matsutomo also advanced in level doubles, where their partnerships are seeded second and first respectively.

Men’s doubles is entirely on seed and was the site of China’s only other loss.  Ivanov/Sozonov beat Kang/Liu to become the only non-Danish Europeans in the India Open quarter-finals, apart from Carolina Marin in women’s singles.

Women’s doubles has also been largely upset free.  Malaysia’s Hoo/Woon lost to Chan/Tse of Hong Kong, while fourth-seeded Reika Kakiiwa / Miyuki Maeda were no match for Korea’s Jang Ye Na / Yoo Hae Won (pictured), who are playing in their fourth tournament together, amid constant partnership changes in the run-up to the beginning of the Olympic qualifying period.  Jang and Yoo are stuck in a half populated with all three of China’s women’s doubles pairs.

Click here for complete Thursday results