Former world no. 12 Kiran George has continued his great run at the Thailand Open 2023 after producing a dominant display against world no. 9 and 2018 World Championships silver medallist China’s Shi Yu Qi, beating him 21-18, 22-20. Double Olympic medallists PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth made an opening round exit, while Lakshya Sen and Saina Nehwal moved to the pre-quarters.
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Saina and Lakshya move forward while Srikanth and Sindhu bow out
Saina Nehwal also made winning starts to their campaign in women’s singles, while Lakshya Sen and world number 4 pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also progressed to the pre-quarterfinals.
Earlier in the day, Kidambi Srikanth was knocked out in the first round by China’s Weng Hong Yang. After losing the first game 21-8, Srikanth came back to win the second game 21-16. Weng, who lost the Malaysia Masters final to HS Prannoy on Sunday, won the third game 21-14 against Srikanth to set up a second-round match against George.
Lakshya also dug deep to eke out a hard-fought 21-23 21-15 21-15 win over Chinese Taipei’s Wang Tzu Wei. He is likely to square off against All England champion Li Shi Feng of China.
Commonwealth Games champion and top seeds Satwik and Chirag too had to work hard to outwit the Danish combination of Rasmus Kjaer and Frederik Sogaard 21-13 18-21 21-17 in a thrilling match.
A former world champion, Sindhu, however, faltered in the opening round, going down fighting 8-21 21-18 18-21 to Canada’s Michelle Li in 62-minute match.
Praneeth, Rajawat, and Verma fail to cross the hurdles
Praneeth, who competed at the Tokyo Olympics, also found France’s Christo Popov too hot to handle, going down 14-21 16-21 in another match.
Orleans Masters winner Priyanshu Rajawat too couldn’t cross the opening hurdle, going down 19-21 10-21 to Malaysia’s Ng Tze Yong.
Former world number 11 Sameer Verma, who had won the Slovenia Open recently, went down 15-21 15-21 to Denmark’s Magnus Johannesen.
Ashwini Bhat K and Shikha Gautam lost to Korea’s third seed Baek Ha Na and Lee So Hee 11-21 6-21 in women’s doubles.
The BWF World Tour is divided into six levels, namely World Tour Finals, four Super 1000, six Super 750, seven Super 500, and 11 Super 300 in order. One other category of tournament, the BWF Tour Super 100 level, also offers ranking points.
The Super 500 is a Grade 2 (level 4) event in the BWF tournament ranking system.
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