New Zealand Open 2018: Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma into quarters

The third and fifth seeds, Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma, entered into quarter finals at the Barfoot and Thompson New Zealand Open 2018. The players defeated Daren Liew of Malaysia with 21-18, 21-17 and Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong with 17-21, 19-21, respectively, in the pre-quarters match.

The emerging 16-year old youngster Lakshya Sen lost to the top seed Lin Dan in the battle of three games with 21-15, 15-21, 12-21 in the 67-minute encounter on Thursday.

Sameer will face Lin Dan, while Praneeth will face the unseeded Niluka Karunaratne of Sri Lanka in the next round.

Other seeded players who reached quarter finals in the Men’s Singles are the Indonesians, Jonathan Christie (2) and Tommy Sugiarto (6), and Thailand player Kantaphon Wangcharoen (8).

While, the 30-year old Ajay Jayaram ousted after losing to Kwang Hee Heo of Chinese Taipei with 15-21, 22-20, 6-21 in the match that lasted for almost one hour.

In the Men’s Doubles event, Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy of India beat Pakin Kuna Anuvit and Natthaphat Trinkajee of Thailand with 21-9, 21-12 to progress into the next round, while in the Women’s Doubles category Jakkampudi Meghana and S Ram Poorvisha lost to the top seeds Della Destiara Haris and Rizki Amelia Pradipta of Indonesia with 15-21, 6-21 in just 32-minutes.

India’s Mixed Doubles pair Shivam Sharma/ S Ram Poorvisha and Rohan Kapoor/Kuhoo Garg ended their campaign after losing Chan Peng Soon/Liu Ying Goh and Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai respectively with 16-21, 14-21 and 11-21, 11-21.