Prannoy advances to Taipei Open quarterfinals

Ace Indian shuttler HS Prannoy waltzed into the quarterfinal of the Taipei Open after recording a comfortable straight-game win over Indonesia’s Tommy Sugiarto here on Thursday. Prannoy, the country’s top-ranked men’s singles player, took 36 minutes to dispatch former world championship bronze medallist Sugiarto 21-9 21-17 in the BWF World Tour Super 300 tournament. The world number nine will play Hong Kong’s fifth seed Angus Ng Ka Long in the last eight stage. Prannoy, who claimed the Malaysia Masters Super 300 title last month, has enjoyed a good run recently. Last week, he put up an impressive display at the Indonesia Open, a Super 1000 tournament, making it to the semifinals, where he lost to world No.1 and eventual winner Viktor Axelsen of Denmark. But former Commonwealth Games medallist Parupalli Kashyap went down 16-21 17-21 to local favourite Su Li Yang. It was also the end of the road for the mixed doubles pair of Sikki Reddy and Rohan Kapoor as well. The Indian duo was handed a 13-21 18-21 defeat by Taipei’s Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Lin Xiao Min. Later in the day, Tanya Kamath will fight against World Championship and Olympic silver medallist Tai Tzu Ying, the tournament top-seed, in the women’s singles round of 16.