Srikanth rallies to enter main draw at Malaysia Masters, Kharb misses out

Kuala Lumpur: Kidambi Srikanth secured a spot in the main draw of the Malaysia Masters, but the rest of the Indian shuttlers were unable to progress past the singles qualifiers, exiting the Super 500 here on Tuesday.

Srikanth, who is on a comeback trail, recovered from a first-game loss to defeat Chinese Taipei’s Huang Yu Kai 9-21 21-12 21-6 in his second qualifying men’s singles match.

The 32-year-old had earlier beaten another Taipei player, Kuo Kuan Lin, 21-8 21-13 in the first round. He will face a challenging opponent in sixth-seeded Chinese player LU Guang Zu in the main draw.

In other matches, Tharun Mannepalli fell 13-21, 21-23 to Thailand’s Panitchaphon Teeraratsakul, while S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian lost 20-22, 20-22 to China’s Zhu Xuan Chen, both of whom ended their campaigns in the qualification stage.

In women’s singles, Anmol Kharb, who was an integral part of the Asian Team gold medal last year, was defeated 14-21, 18-21 by

Taipei’s Hung Yi-Ting.