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Indian ace shuttler HS Prannoy and the exciting men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty moved to the second round of the ongoing China Masters being held in Shenzhen on Tuesday.
Prannoy and Satwiksairaj-Chirag, World Championships bronze medalists, registered straight game wins to move to the pre-quarterfinals stage, as per Olympics.com. Prannoy, India's top-ranked men's shuttler at number eight, beat the 12th-ranked Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-18, 22-20 in 50 minutes. The 31-year-old shuttler overcame a slow start and trailing by 6-9 in the opening game to move to a lead of 11-10 and eventually a four-point lead of 17-13 and won the first game. The second game proved to be more closely fought one as rallies were intense. Prannoy made the scoreline 18-all and eventually won the game by 22-20. Chou had last beaten Prannoy just the previous week in Kumamoto Masters Japan and leads the Indians 7-5 in head-to-head record. In the men's doubles competition, the world number five Satwiksairaj and Chirag won over England's Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in 37 minutes by 21-13, 21-10. However, there were some disappointments as well, with Aakarshi Kashyap, the only Indian women's player in the competition, losing to world No. 17 local Zhang Yi Man 12-21, 14-21 in 33 minutes to crash out of the tournament in the first round itself, continuing her woeful form this year which has seen her never reach the round two. Results at China Masters 2023, a BWF Super 750 event, will be counting towards players' qualifying rankings for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The qualification window for badminton started on May 1 this year and will concluded on April 2024. On Wednesday, Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth and Priyanshu Rajawat will be in action in the men's singles events. (ANI)
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