Praneeth stuns Ginting to reach quarters, Intanon survives scare

Basel: B Sai Praneeth stunned world no 8 Anthony Sinisuka Ginting to progress to the quarter-finals while H S Prannoy lost at the BWF World Championships here on Thursday.

Praneeth swept aside Ginting of Indonesia 21-19, 21-13 to cap off an amazing performance. Prannoy failed against World No 1 Kento Momota and lost 19-21, 12-21.

Praneeth was on top of his game from the start as he erased a 0-3 deficit to move to a 8-5 deficit. He entered the break with a 11-8 advantage.

After the interval, Ginting pulled things back at 14-12 and threatened to stop Praneeth before the Indian got his act together to win the opening game with three straight points from 18-19.

In the second game, Praneeth moved to 6-2 but Anthony made his way to manage a 11-8 lead at the breather. After the break, Praneeth kept marching ahead as Ginting crumbled.

It was a mostly deflating session for Indonesia, as men’s singles sixth seed Ginting and mixed doubles pair Hafiz Faizal/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja and Praveen Jordan/Melati Daeva Oktavianti followed Tunjung out of the competition. Ginting faded out after a keen opening game against Praneeth.

Meanwhile, Seventh seed Ratchanok Intanon teetered on the brink of elimination before hauling herself back to safe ground.

The Thai, world champion in 2013, was nearly bested in a cracker of a contest by Gregoria Mariska Tunjung.

The Indonesian’s sparkling strokeplay had Intanon in trouble all through the first two games.

Down by two match points in the second, Intanon conjured an escape path, winning game point with a cross net shot that was pure magic.

Once she’d opened the escape hatch, there was no stopping Intanon, even as Tunjung’s morale slipped. The 18-21 23-21 21-10 result gave Intanon a quarterfinal against unseeded Singaporean Yeo Jia Min, whose fairytale run continued with a 21-15 14-21 21-16 victory over Vu Thi Trang.

Among the significant results of the day was the defeat of men’s doubles eighth seeds Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen by 13th seeds Liao Min Chun/Su Ching Heng, 21-19 12-21 21-17. The Chinese Taipei duo made only their second quarterfinal this year, after the Australian Open.

Agencies