NEW DELHI: Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal advanced to the quarterfinals of the Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold after registering a thrilling three-game victory in the women’s singles second round in Bangkok on Thursday.
World number four Saina beat unseeded Japanese shuttler Mitani Minatsu 21-13, 15-21, 21-7 in a 46-minute match to set up a clash with seventh seed Xuerui Li in the quarterfinals on Friday.
In men’s singles, top Indian P Kashyap and young gun Sourabh Verma also registered contrasting wins in the pre-quarters to reach the last-eight stage.
Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist Kashyap, seeded 14th, outlasted Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif of Malaysia 21-16, 19-21, 21-12 in a 58-minute match. The Andhra Pradesh lad will face top seed Chen Long of China on Friday.
Madhya Pradesh-player Sourabh, who turned heads with his giant killing act in the Indian Open Super Series in April, continued his rampaging run and defeated Beng Hong Kuan of Malaysia 21-19, 23-25, 21-14.
The 21-year-old will take on third seed Korean Sung Hwan Park in the quarterfinals.
While the singles players impressed, the doubles pairs disappointed with both the men’s and women’s combos becoming first round causalities.
Up against the fifth seeded Chinese pair of Biao Chai and Zhendong Guo, Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas went down 21-8, 21-14 in 30 minutes.
The eighth seeded women’s pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa also couldn’t cross the first round and suffered a 21-23, 13-21 defeat to Lok Yan Poon and Ying Suet Tse.
It may be mentioned that having split with coach Pullela Gopichand in April, ace shuttler Saina Nehwal has patched things up with her mentor and has resumed training under the Hyderabadi.
Saina had recently said it was a case of a minor misunderstanding and that they had put it behind them. “What happened between Gopi Sir and me is a thing of the past. I have resumed training under him,” she said.On his part, all Gopichand said was that things were back to normal. “I will not comment on anything more than this right now,” he said. (Agencies)