Australian Open badminton: Shetty, Lakshya in quarters, Prannoy exits

Sydney, Nov 20 (PTI) Young shuttler Ayush Shetty and former world championships bronze medallist Lakshya Sen advanced in the Australian Open in contrasting fashion to set up an all-Indian quarterfinal clash, while senior pros HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth made early exits here on Thursday.

The top-seeded Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty too made it to the last-eight with an easy 21-18, 21-11 victory against Chinese-Taipei's Su Ching Heng and Wu Guan Xun in 37 minutes.

The Satwik-Chirag pair will take on the fifth-seeded Indonesian pair of Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri in the quarterfinals.

Shetty, winner of the Yonex US Open Super 300 tournament earlier this year, defeated fourth-seeded Kodai Naraoka 21-17, 21-16 in a contest lasting 68 minutes.

This was the 20-year-old's second win over the world No.9 Japanese this year as he set up a showdown with the seventh-seeded Sen, who overcame Chinese-Taipei's Chi Yu Jen 21-17, 13-21, 21-13 in a contest that lasted 63 minutes.

However, Prannoy, who has not advanced beyond the pre-quarterfinals this year, could not keep up with eighth seed and former junior world champion Indonesian Farhan Alwi, losing 19-21, 10-21 in 42 minutes in the USD 475,000 Super 500 event.

On Wednesday, the 33-year-old Prannoy, an Asian Games bronze-medallist and a 2023 World Championships bronze winner, had been stretched by world No. 85 Yohanes Saut Marcellyno before the Indian won 6-21, 21-12, 21-17 against the lower-ranked player.

Veteran Srikanth, whose best this year has been a second-place finish at the Malaysia Masters, lost to Shogo Ogawa of Japan 20-22, 16-21 in 43 minutes.

Shetty, who had beaten Naraoka in the Hong Kong Open this year, was given a tough fight by the higher-ranked Japanese as the lead kept changing hands before the Indian, who was leading 18-17, took the last three points to win the opening game.

The second game was clearly one-sided despite the Japanese keeping pace with Shetty till 14-all before the Indian raised his game a few notches to win five straight points to lead 19-14 and finally close out the match.

Sen took sweet revenge for his round-of-32 loss to Chi Yu Jen, who had defeated the Indian at the Malaysia Open earlier this year.

Sen led from start to finish in the opening game, leading 14-4 at one point before the Chinese-Taipei opponent rallied from 10-20 to 17-20, notching up seven straight points.

The second game saw the resurgent Yu Jen take the match to the decider where Sen again notched up seven consecutive points from 7-7 to make it a one-sided final game. PTI AM UNG AM UNG