Kidambi Srikkanth, Saina Nehwal advance to quarterfinals of Orleans Masters Badminton in Paris

Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikkanth, Saina Nehwal and Ira Sharma advanced to the quarterfinals of the Orleans Masters badminton tournament yesterday in Paris.

 

The top-seeded Srikkanth beat Cheam Jun Wei of Malaysia 21-17, 22-20 in a men's singles third round match while London Olympics bronze medallist Saina prevailed over France's Marie Batomene 18-21, 21-15, 21-10 in the women's singles second-round match.

 

Ira, ranked 162, made it to the last eight after beating Bulgaria’s World No. 71 Mariya Mitsova 21-18, 21-13.

 

The seventh seeded men's doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila also progressed to the quarterfinals with a 21-11 21-12 win over



English duo of Rory Easton and Zach Russ. The Indians face another English pair of Callum Hemming and Steven Stallwood in the last-eight stage.

 

Kapila then paired with Ashwini Ponnappa to beat the English mixed doubles duo of Callum Hemming and Victoria Williams 21-12 21-18 and enter the quarterfinals.

 

Another Indian men's doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnu Vardhan Goud Panjala beat the Danish duo of Kristian Hoholdt Kramer and Marcus Rindsh 21-7 21-13 to reach the quarterfinals stage.

 

However, Chirag Sen lost his men''s singles match to Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus of Denmark 21-14 9-21 17-21.