Bangkok: Sixth seeds Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand entered the women's doubles quarterfinals, but former world no.1 Kidambi Srikanth was upstaged by lower-ranked compatriot Mithun Manjunath on a mixed day for Indians at the Thailand Masters badminton tournament here on Thursday. With the tough three-game win over Srikanth, Manjunath, along with Ashmita Chaliha in the women's draw, progressed to the last-eight stage of the singles' competition.
Treesa and Gayatri beat fellow Indians Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa 21-15, 24-22 in their round of 16 match. They will next be up against fourth seeds Febriana Dwipuji Kusuma and Amallia Cahaya Pratiwi of Indonesia. Manjunath, the current national champion who is ranked 63rd in the world, had to sweat it out for 54 minutes to get the better of former world no.1 Srikanth 21-9 13-21 21-17 in a round of 16 match.
Manjunath will play Netherlands Mark Caljouw in the last-eight round. However, it was curtains for the other Indian in men's singles draw, S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian. Subramanian, a qualifier, lost 9-21 11-21 to Chinese Taipei's Chun-Yi Lin to exit the tournament. Ashmita also made the next round, beating Chinese Taipei's Yu Po Pai 21-12 15-21 21-17 in women's singles. But Malvika Bansod made an early exit in women's singles, losing 22-24 7-21 to local shuttler Busanan Ongbamrungphan in the pre-quarters.
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