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Kowloon: Kidambi Indian shuttles Srikanth and Sameer Verma qualified for the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong Open World Tour Super 500.
Image of Kidambi Srikanth's file. AFP
The fourth-seeded Srikanth, who won the silver medal at this year's Commonwealth Games, had to tap into his tank to beat fellow HS Prannoy 18-21, 30-29, 21- 18 in a thrilling match. an hour and seven minutes.
Srikanth will face Kenta Nishimoto of Japan or Thailand's Kantaphon Wangcharoen.
Sameer has qualified for the quarter-finals after being injured by his formidable opponent, Olympic champion Lin Dan. He will face Denmark's Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus or local hopeful Lee Cheuk Yiu on Friday.
However, doubles in mixed doubles Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa lost 17-21, 11-21 over Lee Yang and Hsu Ya Ching of Chinese Taipei.
The match between the two trainees from the Pulella Gopichand Academy proved to be a thrilling fight since former world number 1 Srikanth was making the catch-up with Prannoy taking advantage of the loot from the first hour.
Prannoy, who had defeated Srikanth in the senior national final last year, evolved neck and neck until 9-9 before the former took a 14- lead. 10.
Srikanth resumed at 15-15 before Prannoy resumed securing the opening game again.
The second match was a cliffhanger, the duo playing with their skin, giving nothing. After a close battle, Srikanth took a slight lead of 11-10 at the break, which quickly evaporated when Prannoy took a 15-12 lead.
Srikanth again got a pair at 16 -16 and rose to 19-17. However, Prannoy took two points to reach 19-19.
After that, there was nothing left to separate the two players who continued to take points alternately before Srikanth managed to capture the 30-point upper limit to pocket the game and go back.
In the decision maker, Srikanth continues his momentum and takes an 11-4 lead in the interval. Prannoy caught up at 16-16 before Srikanth again went to seal the contest.
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