Dutch Open: Ajay Jayaram, Parupalli Kashyap, Lakhanee Sarang through to second round

Almere: India’s Ajay Jayaram, Parupalli Kashyap and Lakhanee Sarang entered the second round of the men’s singles event of the Yonex Dutch Open badminton tournament on Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_3048846” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Ajay Jayaram. AFP[/caption] Top seed Jayaram defeated Henri Aarnio of Finland 21-16 21-12 in his opening match, while 11th seed Kashyap defeated Bjorn Seguin of US 21-12 24-22 and Lakhanee prevailed over Scotland’s Kieran Merrilees 21-12 21-18 in the first round encounters. Jayaram will next play Bulgaria’s Philip Shishov, while Kashyap and Lakhanee will be up against qualifier Rasmus Gemke of Denmark and sixth seed Raul Must of Estonia respectively. However, it was curtains for young Siril Verma and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde as they crashed out in the opening round. While Verma lost 20-22 8-21 against Finland’s Iikka Heino in the men’s singles event, Ruthvika fought hard before going down 21-18 13-21 20-22 against Zii Yii Lee of Malaysia in the women’s singles competition. Among other Indians in fray, mixed doubles pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and Meghana Jakkampudi beat German duo of Daniel Benz and Theresa Wurm 21-11 21-17 to set up a clash against Dutch combination of Jelle Maas and Imke Van der Aar in the next round.