Mülheim (Germany): India's shuttlers duo of Tressa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand advanced to the quarterfinals of the German Open Super 300 badminton tournament at Westenergie Sporthalle here on Thursday.
Fourth-seeded pair of Tressa and Gayatri secured a win in two straight sets over qualifiers Sona Horinkova and Katerina Zuzakova of the Czech Republic. The duo beat the opponents from Czech Republic by 21-10 and 21-11 in the round of 16.
In the first game, the Czech duo started well with the scores tied at 5-5, but the Indian pair dished out a better performance as compared to their opponents and pocketed the first set by 21-10 to take a 1-0 lead in the fixture. Interestingly, story was similar in the second set as the Indian pair registered a comprehensive victory after it got tied at 5-5.
Meanwhile, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran and Aakarshi Kashyap lost their matches in men's and women's singles respectively.
In the women's singles, Aakarshi Kashyap lost in straight games 21-13, 21-14 to sixth-seeded Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark while in the men's singles Sathish Kumar Karunakaran lost 18-21, 22-24 against Nhat Nguyen of Ireland.
Sathish displayed resilience and improved his game into the second set against a higher-ranked opponent, but his effort wasn't enough to force a decider. Irish shuttler Nhat Nguyen showed some composure and kept his calm in the pressure situation and moved to the quarter-finals.
The prominent Indian shuttlers including HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, PV Sindhu, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, and Chirag Shetty didn't participate in the German Open after their heartbreaking defeat in the Badminton Asia Team championships.
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