HYDERABAD:
PV Sindhu,
HS Prannoy and women's doubles pair of
Jwala Gutta and
Ashwini Ponnappa made it to the quarterfinals of the
Bonny China Masters Grand Prix Gold
badminton tournament on Thursday. Jwala and Ashwini will get some much needed ranking points by reaching the last eight stage here. The duo, who slipped a spot to No.16 on Thursday, defeated
Hsieh Pei Chen
and
Wu Ti Jung
of Chinese Taipei 21-12, 21-12 in the second round. The former
Commonwealth Games
champions will face top seeds
Lu Ying
and
Luo Yu
in the semi-finals on Friday.
World No.10 Sindhu broke no sweat as she trounced Chien Hui Yu of Chinese Taipei 21-9, 21-17.Sindhu will face Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand in the quarterfinals. The 20 year-old, who enjoys a 5-3 record against the world No.18 Thai, lost to her at the All England Championships last month.
HS Prannoy, who lost seven ranks to slip to No.30, took just 34 minutes to oust Daren Liew of Malaysia 21-10, 21-15.With this big drop in the rankings, Prannoy is more or less ruled out Olympics. To qualify for Rio the ranking should be within the top-16.