Lucknow: It was a day of upsets at the Syed Modi International India Grand Prix gold with all the top four seeds in men’s singles biting the dust in the pre-quarterfinals at the Babu Banarasi Das Uttar Pradesh Badminton academy here on Thursday.
The tournament, presented by Ponty Chadha Foundation and being conducted by the UP Badminton Association under the patronage of the Badminton Association of India, offers USD 120,000 as prize money, sprang to life on Thursday when 16h seed Shubhakar Dey packed off second seed Ajay Jayaram 21-19, 21-17 and then 12th seed Zulfadli Zulkiffli of Malaysia accounted for top seed and defending champion P Kashyap 21-16, 21-12.
While the top two seeds struggled, third seed RMV Guru Sai Dutt and fourth seed Anand Pawar did put up a fight but suffered a similar fate. Pawar saved three game points in the first game but could not stop the march of Malaysia’s Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin as he lost 22-20, 21-11.
Later in the day, 11th seed B Sai Praneeth rallied after losing the first game to get the better of Guru Sai Dutt 15-21, 21-9, 21-16 to advance to the quarterfinals.He will now face Thailand GP gold champion and sixth seed K Srikanth in the quarterfinals. Srikanth had to save four match points in the second game and then went on to waste four in the decider before getting the better of 14th seed Arvind Bhat 19-21, 23-21, 24-22 in an hour and 11 minutes.
In the women’s section, top seed Saina Nehwal continued her march towards the season’s first title with a 21-5, 21-10 victory over Russia’s Natalia Perminova in just 28 minutes to set up a quarterfinal clash against 5th seed Ballaetrix Manuputty of Indonesia.
Joining her in the last eight were, second seed P V Sindhu and Arundhati Pantawane. Sindhu defeated Sabrina Jaquet of Switzerland 21-19, 21-5 in the pre-quarterfinals while Arundhati got the better of Thailand’s Natcha Saengchote 21-13, 21-11.
