US Open | Sankar Subramaniam stuns world no. 32 Nhat Nguyen in first round
The Indians shuttler had a decent day on the opening day of the US Open 300 tournament, as the likes of PV Sindhu, and Lakshya Sen won their matches with ease. The biggest surprise of the day came when world no. 80 Sankar Subramaniam beat Nhat Nguyen of Ireland 21-11, 21-16 in the first round.
Interestingly, he entered the main draw after winning the qualifiers. On the other hand, Sindhu posted an easy win over Diksha Gupta of the USA 21-15, 21-12 in just 27 minutes to enter the second round. Sen was clinical too in his win over the Finnish opponent Kalle Koljonen 21-8, 21-16 in less than 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, B Sai Praneeth, who has been woefully out of form in the last three years, lost to world no. 7 Li Shi Feng 16-21, 21-14, 21-19 in one hour and 14 minutes. In another match, Ruthvika Shivani went down to Lin Hsiang Ti of Chinese-Taipei 14-21, 11-21.
The former CWG champion Parupalli Kashyap retired midway into his second match after trailing 21-23 7-11 against Koo Takahashi of Japan. The men’s doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala lost 14-21, 14-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu Chieh and Su Li Wei.
The BWF World Tour is divided into six levels, namely World Tour Finals, four Super 1000, six Super 750, seven Super 500, and 11 Super 300. One other category of the tournament, the BWF Tour Super 100 level, also offers ranking points.
(With PTI inputs)