World championships bronze medallist Ashwini Ponnappaalong with her partner Rohan Kapoor, progressed to the second round of the Syed Modi International 2023 mixed doubles badminton event in Lucknow on Tuesday.
The recently-formed Indian duo beat the world No. 41 Malaysian pair of Chan Peng Soon-Cheah Yee See 21-12, 21-18 in the round of 32. Ashwini Ponnappa and Rohan Kapoor will take on Japan’s Yuki Kaneko and Misaki Matsutomo, 24th in the BWF rankings for mixed doubles, in the round of 16.
Tanisha Crasto, who won the mixed doubles title in the 2022 edition besides Ishaan Bhatnagar, was eliminated in the first round with new partner Dhruv Kapila. The Indian badminton players lost to the world No. 26 Singaporean pair of Terry Hee and Jessica Tan 21-16, 18-21, 21-18.
However, Tanisha Crasto will be in action in the women’s doubles with Ashwini Ponnappa. Crasto-Ponnappa won the Abu Dhabi Masters tournament for their first title together as a pair last month.
India had a total of six pairs competing in the main draw of the mixed doubles. BS Reddy-N Sikki Reddy also made it to the round of 16. Anagha Karandikar-Aman Farogh, Nitin Kumar-Navdha Manglam and Shivam Sharma-SP Ram qualified for the main draw in the mixed doubles.
The remaining singles and doubles categories saw only qualification rounds played on Tuesday.
Chirag Sen, elder brother of Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen, and Meiraba Luwang Maisnam marched into the main draw of the men’s singles. The four other Indian badminton players failed to make the cut.
Three of the four Indian women’s singles players — Aadya Variyath, K Mopati and Janani Ananthakumar — progressed to the main round while Ira Sharma faltered.
Shrishti Gupta-Saumya Singh, Gayathri Rani Jaiswal-Sania Sikkandar, Ishu Malik-Tanu Malik and Radhika Sharma-Tanvi Sharma advanced from the women’s doubles qualifiers.
Chirag Sen-Dhruv Rawat, Ayush Makhija-Venkat Gaurav Prasad and Pratik Ranade-Zhakuo Seyie made it to the main draw of men’s doubles.
The Syed Modi India International, a BWF Super 300 event, is the top badminton event to be held in the country this year. Results will count towards players’ qualifying rankings for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Indian badminton players Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth, who are world championship medallists in men’s singles, will play their first-round matches on Wednesday.
Youngsters Unnati Hooda, Malvika Bansod and Tasnim Mir will compete in women’s singles while Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand, the Commonwealth Games bronze medallists, will be the top Indian pair in women’s doubles.
2023-11-28 15:08:00
#Ashwini #PonnappaRohan #Kapoor
