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London Olympics quarter-finalist Parupalli Kashyap showed nerves of steel to notch a hard-fought victory over seventh seeded Vietnamese Tien Minh Nguyen to reach the last eight of the China Super Series in Shanghai on Thursday.
The world No 23 Indian recovered after dropping a game to see off Tien 12-21, 22-20, 21-14 69 minutes in the men's singles competition.
He meets China's Zhengming Wang next, on Friday.
Kashyap, who had beaten Tien in the London Olympics in August, was unable to get his act together in the opening game and was left doing the catch up job as World No. 11 Tien closed it comfortably without being threatened much.
In the second game too the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist trailed 1-5, but made a strong comeback, reeling off seven straight points, to open up a five-point lead.
The Vietnamese caught up at 17-17 and moved to 20-20 but the Indian quickly notched two points to roar back into the contest.
In the decider, Kashyap went into the break at 11-8 after fighting tooth and nail and though Tien stepped up the heat, the Indian kept his nose ahead and eventually cemented his place in the quarter-finals.
Among other Indians, the Indonesian pair of Riky Widianto and Puspita Richi Dili proved too good for the young duo of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Siki Reddy N, beating them 21-11, 21-15 in just 24 minutes.
Tarun Kona and Arun Vishnu also lost, to top seeds Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark 10-21, 8-21 in 32 minutes.