In Hylo Open badminton tournament, all four Indian badminton players – Malvika Bansod, Ayush Shetty, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran and Rakshitha Sree entered into the quarter-finals at Saarbrucken in Germany.
Seeded sixth at the BWF Super 300 tournament, Malvika Bansod secured a win over unseeded Irina Amalie Andersen in her women’s singles round of 16 contest. The 23-year-old Malvika Bansod, 34th in the badminton rankings, will face world No. 31 and fourth seed Nguyen Thuy Linh of Vietnam for a place in the semi-finals.
India’s 17-year-old Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj stunned two-time Commonwealth Games medallist and second seed Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland with a dominating win in her women’s singles round of 16 match. Rakshitha will take on eighth seed Julie Dawall Jakobsen of Denmark in the quarter-finals.
In the men’s singles, the 19-year-old Ayush Shetty, who won the bronze medal at the Junior World Championships last year, beat Italy’s Giovanni Toti to set up a contest with Finland’s Kalle Koljonen for a place in the last four.
Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, seeded seventh, defeated England’s Harry Huang. He will take on Christo Popov of France next.
Sathish was also in action in the mixed doubles event with Aadya Variyath. The fourth-seeded Indian duo lost to the French badminton pair of Tom Lalot Trescarte and Elsa Jacob.