BWF World Championships 2023 Day 3 Highlights: Treesa-Gayatri, Satwik-Chirag progress to pre-quarterfinals

Hello and welcome to Khel Now’s live blog for the third day of BWF World Championships 2023! Stay tuned for live updates

After receiving a bye in the opening round, Asian Champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are set to open their proceedings at the BWF World Championships 2023. The WR-2 pair is set to take on Australia’s Hoi Choo and Cheun Lim for a place in the pre-quarterfinals. This will be the first official encounter between the two pairs.

Other Indians in the fray, 15th seed Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand will be up against Chinese Taipei’s Chang Ching Hui/Yang Ching Tun. Like the men’s doubles pair, Treesa/Gayatri too received bye in the opening round but the form in the past few months have been inconsistent. Apart from the All England Championship, there haven’t been any major results in the BWF World Tour.

Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy continued their rich run of form by storming into the BWF World Championships 2023 pre-quarterfinals. Both Sen and Prannoy won in straight games to march into the men’s singles round of 16. In contrast, five-time BWF World Championship medallist and 2019 champion, PV Sindhu bowed out from the second round of women’s singles after defeat to another former champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan. Sindhu suffered a straight-game defeat in just 44 minutes.

It was also end of the road for women’s doubles pair Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam as well mixed doubles pair Venkat Prasad and Juhi Dewangan. The latter exited the tournament after straight defeat against German duo Jones Ralfy Jansen/Linda Efler.

Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam pushed Dutch pair Debora Jille and Cheryl Seinen to the third game after an opening game loss, but succumb to a defeat by 14-21, 21-11, 14-21.

PV Sindhu and Okuhara met in what was classified as a rematch of the 2017 and 2019 championship match in the same tournament. The WR-15 Indian lead the head-to-head records between them by 9-8 before the match.

However, it was Okuhara who looked more at home as she took the first game convincingly after locking horns at 9-9. Sindhu was guilty of gifting a bunch of points through multiple unforced errors. She, however, started the second game brightly and raced to a 9-0 lead before Okuhara made an amazing comeback to take the lead for the first time at 12-12 and eventually win the match by an identical score of 21-14 in straight games.

India’s Performance on Day 2 of BWF World Championships 2023

Men’s Singles Round of 32

Lakshya Sen beat Jeon Hyeok Jin (21-11, 21-12)

HS Prannoy beat Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo (21-9, 21-14)

Women’s Singles Round of 32

PV Sindhu lost to Nozomi Okuhara (14-21, 14-21)

Women’s Doubles Round of 64

Ashwini Bhat/Shikha Gautam lost to Debora Jille/Cheryl Seinen (14-21, 21-11, 14-21)

Mixed Doubles Round of 64

Venkat Gaurav Prasad/Juhi Dewangan lost to Jones Ralfy Jansen/Linda Efler (12-21, 11-21)

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