Along with India’s performances in the women’s and mixed doubles competitions, the men’s singles campaigns of HS Prannoy and Priyanshu Rajawat came to an end. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, a men’s doubles team, were the only Indians to make it through to the quarterfinals of the Korea Open 2023 badminton competition on Thursday. Indian participation in the men’s singles, women’s singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles competitions came to an end as four additional Indian participants competing in the BWF Super 500 event’s pre-quarterfinals each lost their individual matches.
The third-seeded team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, rated third in the world, upset the Republic of China’s He Jiting and Zhou Haodong, who were ranked 16th, 21-17, 21-15 in 43 minutes. The fifth-seeded Japanese team of Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi will face the Indian badminton team in the quarterfinals on Friday. Earlier in the men’s singles, Hong Kong’s world No. 18 Lee Cheuk Yiu defeated 31-year-old HS Prannoy, who was seeded fifth and ranked 10th in badminton, 21-15, 19-21, and 21-18 in an hour and six minutes.
In contrast, Priyanshu Rajawat lost to top-rank and world No. 4 Kodai Naraoka of Japan 21-14, 18-21, 21-17. Despite putting up a valiant effort, the 32nd-ranked 21-year-old Indian badminton player fell short in an hour and 22 minutes. Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly, who was rated 19th in the women’s doubles competition, fell to the second-seeded and No. 2 team in the world, Baek Ha-na and Lee So-hee of the Republic of Korea, 21-11, 21-4, in 33 minutes. In the mixed doubles, fourth-seeded Chinese players Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping defeated Rohan Kapoor and N Sikki Reddy 21-15, 21-12 in 35 minutes.
