Basel (Switzerland), March 22 () The Indian women’s double pair of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly crashed out in the first round while Malvika Bansod qualified for the women’s singles main draw at the Swiss Open 2023 badminton tournament, here
Gayatri and Treesa, who reached the semi-finals at All England Open in Birmingham last week, lost 14-21, 14-21 to second seeds Apriyani Rahayu and Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti of Indonesia on Tuesday.
On the other hand, Malvika Bansod beat USA’s Lauren Lam 21-17, 21-7 in the women’s singles qualifiers to advance to the main draw. In another qualifying match, Aakarshi Kashyap got a bye into the main draw of the BWF Super 300 event, which is the eighth tournament of the 2023 BWF World Tour.
Meanwhile, India’s veteran doubles player Ashwini Ponnappa lost both her mixed doubles and women’s doubles qualification matches.
In the mixed doubles qualifier, Ashwini, partnering Sumeeth B Reddy, went down 20-22, 12-21 to Chiu Hsiang-Chieh and Lin Xiao Min of Chinese Taipei.
Thereafter, Ashwini and Tanisha Crasto lost in the women’s doubles qualifiers, going down 19-21, 15-21 to China’s Du Yue and Xia Yu Ting.
However, the doubles pair of N Sikki Reddy and Arathi Sara Sunil made it to the main draw with a hard-fought 21-15, 15-21, 21-18 win over Lauren Lam and Paula Lynn Cao Hok of the USA.
In the men’s singles qualifiers, Meiraba Luwang Maisnam and Priyanshu Rajawat failed to qualify for the main draw. While Meiraba beat Spain’s Luís Enrique Penalver 21-16, 21-16 in round 1, he lost 13-21, 25-23, 20-22 to Netherland’s Joran Kweekel in the next round. Priyanshu lost 7-21, 5-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Chia Hao Lee in the first round.
In other results, the men’s doubles pair of Rohan Kapoor and Sumeeth B Reddy crashed out in the qualifiers after losing 15-21, 20-22 to Malaysia’s Boon Xin Yuan-Wong Tien Ci. In the mixed doubles, Rohan Kapoor, partnering N Sikki Reddy got past the German pair of Patrick Scheiel and Franziska Volkmann 21-17, 15-21, 21-18 to reach the main draw.
The men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila went down 21-17, 18-21, 11-21 to Japan’s Akira Koga and Taichi Saito in the first round of the main draw.
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