New Delhi: HS Prannoy continued his golden run as he raced to the quarterfinals of the ongoing Skycity New Zealand Open along with seventh seeded Indian Sourabh Verma.
The US Open champion, Prannoy defeated the 10th seeded Vietnamese Wei Nan , 21-18, 21-19 to progress ahead. He is now on a nine match winning streak.
While the world number 37 Verma overcame the 15th seeded country mate Parupalli Kashyap in an encounting thriller, defeating the US Open runner up 21-18, 13-21, 21-16 in a contest that lasted one hour and four minutes.
Sourabh will next face world no. 88 Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong, while the 17th ranked Prannoy will come up against the 11th seeded world no. 48 Lin Yu Hsien.
The Verma-Kashyap clash lived up to it’s billing. Playing their first ever match as opponents in an international event, the two charted out an blockbuster in what was a great match to witness. The younger Verma had a better start to the match as the Commonwealth Games Gold medalists found it hard to get going .
With his pace and quick movement in the court Verma quickly raced to 15-8, when Kashyap started his fightback. In the end it was just one point (18-17), that decided the opening set, with Sourabh taking the lead.
However, in the second set, it was all Parupalli as he dominated the proceedings, defeating the 37th ranked Indian 13-21, to tie the match at 1-1.
With the match going to the third set, it got more intense as both the players were tied at 11-11 at one point, but from their Verma took over as the 15th seeded Kashyap faltered to allow Sourabh Verma reach his first semi-final since the Shed Modi International Tournament in January.
Another Indian, 15th seeded Siril Verma however had an off day as he bowed out of the tournament losing 13-21, 14-21 to World no. 123 Chia Hung Lu of Chinese Taipei. Lu has been taking giant strides in the tournament having already defeated World number two and fellow Indian Ajay Jayaram, in the first round.