Top Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty advanced to the quarter-finals of the Hylo Open Super 300 badminton tournament after a hard-fought win in Saarbrucken, Germany, on Thursday.
Satwiksairaj and Chirag, seeded third in the tournament, beat the English pair of Rory Easton and Zach Russ 22-24, 21-15, 21-11 in a pre-quarterfinal match that lasted one hour and two minutes.
The Indian duo, who recently won the French Open Super 750 title, will face the seventh-seeded English duo of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in the last eight tie.
In the women's singles, Aakarshi Kashyap lost to Danish Line Kjaersfeld 13-21, 14-21 in the round of 16.
In the women's doubles, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand won 21-18, 21-19 against the Dutch duo of Debora Jille and Cheryl Seinen. Treesa and Gayatri face Chinese Taipei's Hsu Ya Ching and Lin Wan Ching in the quarter-finals.
However, Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda lost 16-21, 7-21 to Hu Ling Fang and Lin Xiao Min of Chinese Taipei in the women's doubles pre-quarterfinals.
Prem Kumar-Abu Hubaida pairing in quarter-finals at Para Badminton Worlds
India continued its good run at the BWF Para Badminton World Championships as the men's doubles wheelchair duo of Prem Kumar Ale and Abu Hubaida entered the quarter-finals in Tokyo on Thursday.
Ale and Hubaida, the World No 6 pair in men's doubles WH1-WH2, got the better of the Spanish duo of Ignacio Fernandez and Francisco Motero 21-12, 21-8 to top the group.
Ale highlighted Wednesday's win against Thailand's Dumnern Junthong and Anuwat Sriboran 21-17, 23-21 was the turning point.
“That win (over Thailand) was important for us to cement our place in the elimination round,” he said.
“It has been a good tournament so far. We have worked hard for the World championships for a long time, especially on our accuracy and combination and now the results are showing.
"Hopefully we can go back home with a podium finish this time,” said Ale who along with Hubaida claimed five medals this year, including one silver.
Ale and Hubaida will next face France duo Thomas Jacobs and David Toupe on Friday.
Meanwhile, top seed Pramod Bhagat and Manoj Sarkar lived up to their billing and reached the last eight stage of men's doubles SL3-SL4 as did second seeded Chirag Baretha and Raj Kumar in men's doubles SL3-SU5.
Bhagat and Sarkar overcame Korea's Joo Dongjae and Shin Kyung Hwan in three games 21-17, 16-21, 21-10, while Baretha and Kumar thrashed Jorge Enrique Moreno and Jean Paul Ortiz Vargas of Colombia 21-2, 21-7.
In other matches, Worlds debutants Hardik Makkar and Ruthick Ragupathi rallied from a game down to defeat Chinese Taipei's Gui Yu Pu and Yeh En-Chuan 18-21, 21-16, 21-19 in their last group match.
