India Open: Kashyap keeps Olympic dream alive

Locked in a battle of qualification for the London Olympics, compatriots P Kashyap and Ajay Jayaram witnessed contrasting results with the former scripting a resounding win and the latter suffering a close defeat in the India Open Super Series Badminton in New Delhi on Thursday.

Lagging in the reckoning for London Games by over 1000 points, Kashyap dug deep into his reserves and produced a scintillating performance to notch up a come-from-behind 15-21, 21-14, 22-20 over Thailand's Boonsak Ponsana.

He will now have to win his quarterfinal battle with Chen Jin to qualify for the Olympics.

While Kashyap fought on court no 2, his friend Jayaram was locked in a battle with world number one Lee Chong Wei of Malaysian on the adjacent court and even though the Indian played his heart out, he couldn't avoid a 21-16, 15-21, 21-5 defeat to crash out of the tournament.

Among other Indians, the challenge of qualifier Neha Pandit and mixed doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and K Tarun came to an end.

Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas, who got a bye in the first round, notched up a 21-18, 18-21, 21-19 victory over Korean pair of Ki Jung Kim and Sa Rang Kim in the men's doubles competition.

Rising shuttler P V Sindhu also produced a brilliant performance, reaching the quarterfinal with a 21-17, 22-20 victory over eighth seed Korean Ji Hyun Sung.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa, meanwhile, avenged their loss at the ABC to Indonesian pair of Vita Marissa and Nadya Melati by seeing them off 16-21, 21-15, 21-17 in a 50-minute match.

In other matches, women's singles top two seeds Shixian Wang and Li Xuerui cruised through to the quarterfinals, while two-time All England Champion Tine Baun crashed out after losing to Xiao Jia Chen.

Important Results (Second round, Indians unless specified)
Men's singles: 1-Lee Chong Wei (MAS) bt Ajay Jayaram 21-16, 15-21, 21-5, 3-Chen Jin (CHN) bt Muhammad Hafiz Hashim (MAS) 21-18, 21-15; 2-Peter Gade (DEN) bt Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk (THA) 21-19, 22-20; P Kashyap bt Boonsak Ponsana (THA) 15-21, 21-14, 22-20.
Women's singles: 1-Shixian Wang (CHN) bt Ai Goto (JPN) 21-19, 21-19; 2-Li Xuerui (CHN) bt Mingtian Fu (HKG) 21-19, 21-11; 4-Jiang Yangjiao (CHN) bt Jie Yao (NED) 21-11, 21-10; Gu Juan (HKG) bt Neha Pandit 21-13, 21-10.