India Open 2018: Sai Praneeth, Sameer Verma light up opening day; HS Prannoy knocked out after suffering injury

Former Indian national champion B Sai Praneeth’s fighting 21-11, 17-21, 21-17 victory in 61 minutes over Kerala-born Englishman Rajiv Ouseph, and qualifier Riya Mukherjee’s gallant but infructuous 47-minute long 22-20, 18-21, 12-21 battle against eighth-seeded Spaniard, Beatriz Corrales, were the talking points of the opening day’s play in the India Open badminton championships at New Delhi’s Siri Fort Indoor Stadium.

Late in the evening on Wednesday, the 2016 national champion Sameer Verma sent a motley crowd of partisan spectators into raptures by lowering the colours of seventh-seeded Anders Antonsen of Denmark, in straight games at 22-20, 21-8 in an entertaining 45-minute battle of wits in which the Indian showed a clean pair of heels to the rangy Dane from a 7-6 position in the second game.

While it was a first career meeting between the two, it could be considered a fabulous victory for the 23-year-old younger of the two Verma brothers who hail from Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, and who have been training at the Pullela Gopichand Academy now for just under a decade. His elder brother Sourabh did not have any such luck, going down in 43 minutes at 19-21, 11-21 to the 21-year-old Chinese No 4 seed, Shi Yuqi, runner-up at last year’s All England Championships.

Sourabh has already fallen outside the top-50 in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings, but Sameer, who has slid in recent months to the 30th position, compared to the 12th rank of the exciting 20 year old Antonsen, looks set to climb back into the top-20 list by the time the prestigious All England comes round in early-March.

Even bigger than Verma’s exploits was the upset of the day, recorded by Shreyansh Jaiswal, who knocked out the No 5 seed and reigning Indian national champion, HS Prannoy, by an almost unbelievable 21-4, 21-6 margin in a mere 13 minutes. Those scores were, coincidentally, identical to the margin by which Thailand’s 2013 world champion and No 3 seed, Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand, thrashed Rasika Raje, albeit taking nine minutes more for her casual stroll-through to the second round.

But whereas Raje had no acceptable excuse for her on-court debacle, Prannoy barely showed his normal smooth movement on the green Hova mat, and was reported to be suffering from a corn on his foot. The reasons for his taking to the court when he knew that he could not possibly play his normal game is due to BWF rule of participating in 12 mandatory tournaments as reported by Firstpost.

World No 3, Kidambi Srikanth, seeded second at this India Open, but now the top favourite to win the title after the last-minute withdrawal of world champion Viktor Axelsen, could not afford to relax for even a second against Lee Cheuk Yiu in what was their first-ever meeting. The 21 year old Hong Kong player, ranked 43rd in the world, troubled the Indian ace right through the course of both their games, trailing Srikanth 17-19 in the first game and 18-19 in the second, before the latter scrambled to a tight 21-17, 21-18 victory.

Apart from Prannoy, none of the fancied singles players or doubles pairs suffered any alarms on Wednesday, though the task of the leading Indian men’s doubles combination, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, was made easier by the unexpected defeat of the fifth-seeded Danes, Mathias Christiansen and David Daugaard at the hands of China’s Chai Biao and Wang Zekang by a 23-21, 9-21, 21-19 scoreline.

The Indian youngsters, who had lost the last National final in Nagpur narrowly to Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, advanced to their projected second-round meeting with the Chinese giant-killers with a clinical 31-minute 21-18, 21-14 triumph over Hong Kong’s Chang Tak Ching and Hee Chun Mak. Nor were Attri and Reddy extended, as they blasted compatriots Adarsh Kumar and Jagadish Yadav at 21-7, 21-13 in just 19 minutes.

Meanwhile, Subhankar Dey, who had showed great promise in the Premier Badminton League earlier this month, and who had been fortuitously promoted from the qualifying tournament to the main draw, due to the late withdrawal Axelsen, frittered away the gilt-edged opportunity he had been given, to advance further in the tournament. He lost to compatriot Kartikey Gulshan Kumar by a 21-17, 14-21, 21-13 scoreline, in the day’s longest match, which lasted seven minutes beyond the hour mark.

India’s two shuttle queens, top-seeded PV Sindhu and No 4 seed, Saina Nehwal, packed far too many guns for their respective first-round opponents, and had little difficulty in advancing. World No 3, Sindhu, was not troubled at any stage of her lung-opener against Denmark’s Natalia Koch Rohde, and took three minutes over the half-hour mark to eliminate the 22 year old Dane, ranked a lowly 43rd in the world.

Saina, who is trying her best to curtail her exhausting schedule, and to get out of the task of representing India at the Asia Team Championship, scheduled to be played from 6-11 February at Alor Setar, Malaysia, cantered through the second game of her encounter against another Dane, Sofie Holmboe Dahl, winning 21-15, 21-9 in 41 minutes, after being held to 11-all in the opening stanza.

As anticipated, Saina will next run into yet another Danish player, Line Hojmark Kjaersfeldt, who was not unduly stretched while putting India’s Reshma Karthik firmly in her place at 21-12, 21-14. Olympic silver medallist Sindhu should also find her second outing in New Delhi relatively uncomplicated, as she takes on Bulgaria’s Linda Zetchiri, who accounted for India’s Vaidehi Choudhari after a struggle in the first game, at 21-19, 21-15.

The women’s No 2 seed, Carolina Marin, looked fairly composed on the court, and minus her usual histrionics, while moving smoothly past Thai qualifier, Mattana Hemrachatanun, with a 21-15, 21-11 verdict.

However, the two-time former world champion and Rio Olympics gold medallist has a challenging tie on her hands on Thursday, as she runs into China’s lissome Gao Fangjie, who had beaten both her and Sindhu in last November’s China Open Superseries Premier championships, and barged into the final from a qualifying spot. The feisty Marin will doubtless be thirsting for revenge; and, on current form, looks likely to get it.