Prannoy pulls off upset to reach BWF World Championship second round

The pair of Dhruv Kapila and Arjun Ramachandran also managed to go through to the next round.

HS Prannoy stormed into the second round of the BWF World Championship. This is after a surprising win over Hong Kong shuttler Angus Ng Ka Long in the men’s singles category. The unseeded Prannoy faced the No. 8 seed in a highly challenging match, but came out strongly to oust his opponent.

Ka Long was the overwhelming favorite to win the match and proved that by starting out very strongly. The Hong Kong shuttler dominated the first game, winning it by 21-13 to take early control of the contest.

However, Kumar showed admirable willpower to bounce back from a difficult position. He went toe-to-toe with Ka Long and forced errors, allowing him to win the second game 21-18. The third game was an extremely tightly affair, with neither player wanting to give anything away.

Ultimately, Prannoy managed to break Ka Long and pulled off an amazing comeback. He won by the margin of 13-21, 21-18, 21-19 to move onto the second round – where he’ll face Malaysian shuttler Liew Daren.

Kapila and Ramachandran progress forward

In the men’s doubles first round clash at the BWF World Championship, the Indian pair of Dhruv Kapila and Arjun Ramachandran managed to defeat Danish duo Daniel Lundgaard and Mathias Thyrri. It wasn’t an easy affair at all, but the pair were able to get the job done.

The Danish shuttlers took Kapila and Ramachandra to their absolute limits. But, they ensured to get timely break points that helped them seal a straight games win by the margin of 21-18, 21-17.

However, in the other first round men’s double tie, the duo of Arun George and Sanyam Shukla weren’t able to go past their first obstacle. The Indian duo faced Chinese shuttlers Ou Xuanyi and Zhang Nan, but just weren’t able to outwit their opponents.

They suffered a straight games defeat by the margin of 15-21, 14-21 and were knocked out of the BWF World Championship.

Disappointment in mixed doubles clashes

India found no success in the mixed doubles category at the BWF World Championship Day 1. The duo of Juhi Dewangan and Venkat Prasad were embarrassed by the Danish duo of Mathias Thyrri and Mari Surrow.

The Danish duo picked up a huge 21-8, 21-4 win to glide into the second round.

In the other match, the duo of Utkarsh Arora and Karishma Wadkar gave a considerably stronger fight. But, they ultimately lost against the German duo of Patrick Scheiel and Franziska Volkmann. The Indian pair started strongly and dragged the Germans to the wire in the first game, but ended up falling to a narrow 20-22 loss. In the second game, Scheiel and Volkmann were better and won it 21-16 – knocking out the Indian mixed doubles duo from the BWF World Championship.

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