Dutch Open | Parupalli Kashyap, Sourabh Verma enter second round on a disastrous day for India
At Dutch Open, Parupalli Kashyap and Sourabh Verma have managed to salvage some pride for India as the contingent suffered one of the worst opening days in any badminton tournament. While Shubhankar Dey managed to enter the second round, Indian women’s players were largely underperformed yesterday.
Kashyap had an easy opponent in the form of 198th-ranked Sri Lankan Dinuka Karunaratna and the first game couldn’t have been easier. Karunaratna’s lack of experience proved costly as the Indian ace made merry to take the first game 21-15. However, the Sri Lankan made a strong comeback in the following set to enforce a decider - something that Kashyap wouldn’t have envisioned. It was time for him to pull up his socks and he did it eventually to secure the game 21-16 and the match as well.
Subhankar Dey also had a difficult outing against the local boy Nick Fransman and despite conceding the first game 15-21, he made a stunning comeback and secured the next two games 21-18, 21-19 to enter the second round. While Kashyap and Dey had to break a lot of sweat for their win, Sourabh Verma had a comparatively easy outing against Bulgaria’s Dimitar Yanakiev. Verma, after winning the first game 21-15, made Yavakiev look like a kid as he scampered through to win the second game 21-12.
In the women’s singles, Sai Uttejitha Rao secured a comfortable 21-10, 21-13 win against Slovak player Martina Repiska. But, the case was entirely different for the other players. In other women’s singles matches, Saili Rane and Riya Mookerjee couldn’t pose any challenge and bowed out from the first round. Similarly, Aruna Prabhudesai and Sri Krishna Priya Kudravalli were convincingly beaten by China’s Qi Xufei and Germany’s Fabienne Deprez respectively.