Indian shuttlers continue good run at Russia Open

VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA: Former national champions Sourabh Verma and Rituparna Das continued their impressive run as they progressed to the quarterfinals of the USD 75,000 Russia Open BWF Tour Super 100 tournament here on Thursday.

Also making it to the final eight were Mithun Manjunath, Subhankar Dey and Vrushali Gummadi in singles, while the men's doubles pair of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla and the two mixed doubles combination of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg and Saurabh Sharma and Anoushka Parikh also entered the quarterfinals.

Coming back after recovering from an injury, Sourabh, who made the cut for the Asian Games after proving his worth at the selection tournaments, trounced Russia's Sergey Sirant 21-11 21-9 in a lop-sided contest. The eighth-seeded Indian will face Israel's Misha Zilberman, seeded third.

Rituparna, who won the India International Series and Polish International in 2016, had to dig deep into her reservoir to eke out a 13-21 21-17 21-19 win over second seed Ying Ying Lee of Malaysia.

The 21-year-old from Haldia, who recovered from an injury-laden 2017 to clinch her first title this season at the All India Senior Ranking Badminton tournament in Bangalore, will square off against American qualifier Iris Wang next.

Mithun, who had won the men's singles title at the All India Senior Ranking Badminton tournament in Bangalore, defeated Japan's Koji Naito 21-16 21-13 to set up a meeting with Malaysia's Satheishtharan Ramachandran tomorrow.

The fifth-seeded Subhankar, who had won titles at Iceland and Portugal last year and registered a win at the Kabal International this year, saw off compatriot Siddharth Pratap Singh 21-11 21-19. The 25-year-old will meet second seed Russian Vladimir Malkov in the quarterfinals.

Vrushali Gummadi dumped Korea's Byeol Lim Lee 21-11 21-13 in 24 minutes. The 20-year-old will meet Malaysia's Yen Mei Ho.

In doubles, Rohan and Kuhoo, who had won Iceland International and finished runners-up at the Lagos International last week, defeated local pair of Alexey Panov and Polina Makkoveeva 21-10 21-14. The duo will cross swords with local combo of Andrej Loginov and Liliia Abibulaeva at the Sport Hall Olympic tomorrow.

Arun and Sanyam, who won the Dutch International this season, defeated Canada's Jeffrey Lam and England's Hin Shun Wong 21-12 21-13 in men's doubles.

The mixed pair of Saurabh and Anoushka also notched up a 21-6 21-12 win over Russian combo of Artem Serpionov and Anastasiia Pustinskaia.

However, it was curtains for the seventh-seeded Mugdha Agrey, as she lost to Iris Wang 4-21 13-21 in a one-sided women's singles clash.