B Sai Praneeth cruises into quarterfinals at Swiss Open 2021

India's campaign had a mixed bag on Thursday as B. Sai Praneeth and the men's doubles duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won their respective matches at the Swiss Open 2021 in Basel.

Praneeth moved into the quarterfinals of the men's singles competition after registering a comfortable 21-12, 21-17 against Spaniard Pablo Abian, who had knocked out India's Parupalli Kashyap in the opening round of the Super 300 tournament.

Praneeth is the third Indian to enter the last-8 of the men's singles event after Kidambi Srikanth and Ajay Jayaram on Thursday.

The 4th-seeded Srikanth, who is still searching for a berth for the Tokyo Olympics, defeated World No. 50 from France Thomas Rouxel 21-10, 14-21, 21-14 in 52



minutes to enter the quarterfinals while Jayaram also played out a three-game thriller in his round of 16 clash.

Jayaram beat Rasmus Gemke of Denmark 21-18, 17-21, 21-13 while compatriot Sourabh Verma crashed out after losing 17-21, 14-21 against Vitidsarn Kunlavut of Thailand.

Later in the day, the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty dispatched Indonesia's Pramudya Kusumawardana and Yeremia Rambitan 21-17, 20-22, 21-17 in a hard-fought clash in the round of 16.

Unfortunately the women's doubles pairing of Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy couldn't taste success on Day 3 and went down fighting against the Danish duo of Amalie Magelund and Freja Ravn 11-21, 15-21 in the pre-quarterfinals.