Singapore: The Indian men’s doubles team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty entered the quarterfinals, while former world champion PV Sindhu suffered an early exit in the Singapore Open uper 750 here on Thursday.
Satwiksairaj and Chirag rallied to beat the seventh-seeded Indonesian duo of Sabar Karyaman Gutama and Moh Reza Pahlevi Isfahani 19-21 21-16 21-19 in a gruelling contest that lasted one hour and 14 minutes.
They will face the second seeded Malaysian team of Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin in the next round.
It was a commendable performance by the Indian duo, which is making a comeback after battling fitness issues for the last few weeks.
Sindhu went down to world No. 5 Chen Yufei of China 9-21 21-18 16-21 in 65 minutes in a hard-fought second-round match. It was Sindhu’s seventh loss to Chen in 13 meetings, highlighting her inconsistency this season.
There was disappointment for India in the men’s singles competition as HS Prannoy bowed out following a 16-21 14-21 loss to Frenchman Christo Popov in the
pre-quarterfinals.