Australian Open badminton: Prannoy, Verma, Aakarshi lose as Indian campaign ends

Sydney: India's campaign at the 2024 Australian Open badminton championship came to a disappointing end in the quarterfinals as H.S Prannoy, Sameer Verma and Aakarshi Kashyap went down to their respective opponents at the BWF World Tour Super 500 series event.

The mixed doubles pair of B. Sumeeth Reddy and Sikki Reddy went down to the top-seeded Chinese combine.

Fifth seed Prannoy fell to Japan’s Kodai Naraoka, sixth in the world badminton rankings, 21-19, 21-13 in 61 minutes at the Quaycentre.

Sameer Verma, who stunned former world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in the previous round, lost to world No. 17 Lin Chun-Yi of Chinese Taipei 21-12, 21-13 in the last-eight stage of the event with a prize fund of USD 420,000.

In the women’s singles, eighth-seeded Aakarshi lost to third-seeded Pai Yu-Po of Chinese Taipei 21-17, 21-12.

In the mixed doubles event, B. Sumeeth Reddy and N. Sikki Reddy lost to world No. 5 Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Xin of the People’s Republic of China 21-12, 21-14.