Lucknow: P.V. Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, B. Sai Praneeth entered the quarter-finals, while H.S. Prannoy and the men's doubles pair of Mannu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy suffered upsets in the pre-quarterfinals of the Syed Modi International Badminton Championships here on Thursday.
Also advancing were women's doubles pairs of Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy and Aparna Balan and Prajakta Sawant, as Indian 15th seed Harsheel Dani starred with his shocking 21-18 21-18 win over Pronnoy in 35 minutes .
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Olympic 2016 runner-up Sindhu tamed lower-ranked compatriot Lalita Dahiya 21-7, 21-12 at the Babu Banarasi Das Indoor Stadium. Among other women's singles notable matches, unseeded Rituparna Das stunned Russian eighth seed Ksenia Polikarpova 21-12, 21-19.
Krishna Priya Kudaravalli and Vaidehi Choudhari also entered into the last eight meetings. Vaidehi will be Sindhu's opponent on Friday.
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In the men's singles category, Srikanth moved past compatriot Ansal Yadav 21-15 21-16, while ninth seed B. Sai Praneeth overcame Danish fifth seed Anders Antonsen 21-17, 21-19 in 45 minutes.
Sourabh Varma moved past compatriot Lakshya Sen 21-14, 21-16. Sourabh's brother, eighth seed Sameer also advanced following his win over Malaysian 10th seed Wei Feng Chong 21-15, 21-16.
In the women's doubles category, Ashwini and Sikki eased past compatriots Dimpal Hazarika and Sanghamitra Saikia 21-7, 21-10.
The pair of Aparna-Prajakta won over Juhi Dewangan and Aakarshi Kashyap 21-13, 17-21, 21-11.
Also moving to the next round were Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha S. Ram, who moved past Deeksha Choudhary and Deepali Gupta 21-16, 21-10 in 23 minutes.
However, Indian men's doubles third seeds Mannu and Sumeeth exited the competition with a shocking 15-21, 21-17, 17-21 loss to unseeded Malaysians Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif and Khim Wah Lim.
Sumeeth, however, extended his stay till Friday as he partnered Ashwini to reach the mixed doubles quarter-final following a 21-15, 21-18 win over fellow Indians Rohan Kapoor and Sanjana Santosh.
Sanjana's campaign at the tournament is still alive with she and her doubles partner Arathi Sara Sunil beating Kuhoo Garg and Ningshi Block Hazarika.
Sikki won also in the mixed doubles, partnering Pranaav Jerry Chopra for a regular 21-16, 21-15 win against Ketan Chahal and Mohita Sahdev.
Prajakta also kept her mixed doubles campaign alive when she paired up with Malaysian Yogendran Khrishnan to beat Tushar Sharma and Tapaswini Samantaray 21-15, 20-22, 21-16.
Mixed doubles top seeds Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen of Denmark had it easy as they defeated unseeded Indians Venkat Gaurav Prasad and Juhi Dewangan 21-8, 21-13.
