Grand Prix Gold: Kashyap wins on return; Prannoy, Jayaram enter second round

A fit-again P Kashyap of India resumed his journey in international badminton by notching up a comfortable win, while H S Prannoy and Ajay Jayaram also advanced to the second round of Indonesia Grand Prix Gold.

Kashyap, whose Rio Olympics dream was derailed by a series of injuries, spanked Nathaniel Ernestan Sulistyo of Indonesia 21-6 21-8 to sail into the second round, while seventh seeded Prannoy rallied to win 16-21 21-19 21-14 over Ha Young Woong of Korea and third seed Jayaram beat local lad Yehezkiel Fritz Mainaky 21-8 21-9.

B Sai Praneeth overcame Riyanto Subagja of Indonesia 21-18 13-21 21-13, but P C Thulasi suffered defeat in women’s singles to Xiaoyu Liang of Singapore 21-12 21-15 at the Dome Stadium.

Tanvi Lad and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde also faced defeat in women’s singles.

In other men’s singles matches, Harsheel Dani, Siril Verma, Abhishek Yelegar and Kaushal Dharmamer ended on the losing side.

The men’s doubles pair of K Nandagopal and Sanyam Shukla lost their first round match.