Review: India's performance at the Vietnam Open

The team's campaign ended after N. Sikki Reddy and Rohan Kapoor lost the mixed doubles semi-final.

India had good participation at the BWF Vietnam Open 100 with the tournament clashing with the 36th National games held in Gujarat. A few of the top Indians preferred to play at the National Games like HS Prannoy, MR Arjun, and Chirag Shetty. While few lower rung players to increase their ranking points and gain experience went ahead with the Vietnam Open.

Overall the Indian performance was a bit topsy turvy with few winning against quality opponents. But couldn't proceed to the latter stages of the tournament. The majority of the BWF tour will have only five rounds to play but the Vietnam Open was contested with six rounds including the finals.

Men’s

Sankar Subramanium Muthusamy defeats Tommy Sugiato from Indonesia (WR 42) and former World Championships bronze medallist in three sets in the second round. In the first round, Kiran George from India took on Subramium but retired due to injury after trailing (1-14). Kiran George in recent times has played well but couldn't continue at the Vietnam Open.

This was Sankar Subramanium’s first win against a top 50 player and should be a memorable one. Sankar could not keep the momentum going into the third round as he succumbed to a defeat at the hands of Lee-Chia-hao from Chinese Taipei.

Sankar is set to take part in the World Junior Championships scheduled to be held in October and is also the top-ranked Indian in the junior section. This win should give him a lot of confidence going ahead.

The tournament's 2nd seed Sai Praneeth lost in the 2nd round to Sathish Kumar Karunakaran from Tamil Nadu in three sets. Praneeth was the only Indian from the men’s section to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Though, since then has not progressed to the quarter-finals of any BWF tournament.

The Indian lost a close battle to Ong K Y from Malaysia in three sets (19-21, 21-17, 21-19).

Sathish Kumar is currently ranked 114 in the men's singles and had recently won the Cameroon International Challenge. Sathish also made it to the quarter-finals stage at the recently concluded Maharashtra Challenge. 

Meiraba Luwang Maisnam received a bye in the opening round. He then went on to win the second round in three sets against Lok J H from Malaysia. In the third round, Maisnam lost to CHI Y-j from Chinese Taipei in two sets ( 8-21, 20-22). The 19-year-old is considered to be one of the bright talents from India.

Harshit Agarwal like the other Indians progressed to the third round after battling out in the opening two rounds but lost to K.Naraoka from Japan (15-21, 6-21). Naraoka is a quality player and Harshit was no match to the gameplay.

All the men could only progress to the 3rd round failing to enter the quarterfinals stage. 

Women’s

Saina Nehwal and Ashmita Chaliha were the only seeded Indian players who both withdrew in the end. It was now up to Ritupurna Das, Anupama Upadhyay, and Ira Sharma but both failed to progress to the quarter-finals stages.

Ira Sharma after winning the first round was beaten by GOH J W of Malaysia in straight sets. GOH has progressed well in the senior setup. She gave a tough fight to PV Sindhu at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Anupama the experienced woman among the Indians exited in the first round itself playing S Kisona from Malaysia the 5th seed. Anupama fought till the end but Kisona got better of her.

Ritupurna Das progressed till the 2nd round but fell in the hands of Tran T P T from the host country in two sets.

Mixed Doubles

The pair of Sikki Reddy and Rohan Kapoor finished as the only semifinalist from the Indian contingent. The pair on their way to the semifinals upset the 8th seed pair of Yeung/Fan from Hong Kong in the second round and the 3rd seed pair of Chan P/Cheah Y from Malaysia in the quarterfinals. 

The quarter-finals win against the 3rd seed was an easy one winning in straight sets. In the semi-finals, the Indian pair faced the top seed pair from Indonesia Rehan/Lisa and lost (16-21, 14-21)

Sikki Reddy has not been in good form in the recent past. Sikki and Ponappa will no longer be pairing up in the women’s doubles category. A semifinals finish would have instilled hope in Sikki to perform better on the World Stage both in the mixed and women’s doubles categories.

After the Asian Leg, the tour now moves to the western part of the world which is Europe. The next BWF will commence in the latter stages of October.