India’s HS Prannoy advanced into the quarterfinals of men’s singles quarter-finals in Auckland.
He remained the lone Indian survivor at the New Zealand Open BWF Super 300 tournament on Thursday as the men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy bowed out earlier on the day.
As Saina Nehwal’s shock knock out remained a burden, the only hope lied in the men’s singles players from which Praneeth crashed out and Prannoy stayed on course.
Prannoy took out second seed Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia 21-14 21-12 to make it to the last eight. World ranked 26th Prannoy sealed his victory in just 37 minutes.
However Prannoy’s training partner Sai Praneeth had an extremely difficult task ahead of him in the last 16 as he was up against multiple-time Olympic gold medalist and Malaysia Open 2019 winner Lin Dan. Even though Lin was erratic although the year on Thursday, he was in solid form and hardly gave Praneeth an inch. He could stand only for 37 minutes before the legend of sport advanced to the quarters.
