Australian Open | Indian singles duo B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma bow out in quarter-finals

Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma lived up their billing in the previous round of the Australian Open as they displayed superiority in their respective wins over Indonesia's Panji Ahmad Maulana (21-12 21-14) and Japan’s Takuma Ueda (21-16 21-12) to seal a quarter final spot. But they both failed to progress beyond this stage of the tournament after facing defeat at the hands of Asian opponents.

Hong Kong’s Yiu Lee Cheuk was the first to hand defeat to Indian shuttler Sai Praneeth, who fought hard but still faced defeat by a score of 21-23, 13-21 as he went down in two consecutive sets. The game went on for a period of 43 minutes before second seed Praneeth was finally defeated at hands Cheuk.

The next to exit the competition was the energetic Sameer Verma who did not seem to be on his groove on the day. Fourth-seed Sameer failed to exert any pressure against unseeded Chinese player Guangzu Lu, who comfortably pocketed the encounter in straight games of 21-14, 21-6 in under 34 minutes.

However, there was good news for the badminton fraternity on the day as well as Indian men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy advanced to the semi-finals of the Australian Open. The duo produced a brilliant comeback against compatriots Arjun MR and Ramchandran Shlok as they beat them by a scoreline of 17-21, 21-19,21-18 in a match that went on for 51-minutes.