Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma advanced to the quarterfinals in men’s singles of the Hong Kong Open World Tour Super 500 tournament on Thursday.
However, Olympic Silver medalist P V Sindhu lost to South Korean Sung J. H. 26-24, 22-20 in the pre-quarter-final of the women’s singles category.
Fourth-seeded Srikanth, who had claimed a silver medal at this year’s Commonwealth Games, defeated fellow Indian H S Prannoy 18-21 30-29 21-18 in a thrilling match. Srikanth will face either Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto or Thailand’s Kantaphon Wangcharoen.
Sameer qualified for the quarterfinals after his opponent, Olympic champion Chen Long pulled out of the competition due to injury. He will face either Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus or local hope Lee Cheuk Yiu on Friday.
The mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa lost 17-21 11-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Lee Yang and Hsu Ya Ching to bow out of the tournament.