BWF Taipei Open: Ayush Shetty stuns third seed Lee Chia-hao to reach Rd-of-16

Taipei (Chinese Taipei), May 7 (IANS) In a big upset, World No. 44 Ayush Shetty defeated World No. 13 Lee Chia-hao of Chinese Taipei, a recent runner-up at the All-England Championships, to advance to the Round of 16 in the Taipei Open, a BWF Super 300 badminton tournament, here on Tuesday.

The 20-year-old Shetty secured the victory in straight games, brushing aside third seed Lee 21-17, 21-18 in 50 minutes in a match played on Court 1 of Taipei Arena.

Former World No.1 Kidambi Sikanth defeated compatriot S.Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian in straight games to reach the pre-quarterfinals on Tuesday as India continued to experience mixed results.

Srikanth defeated Subramanian 21-16, 21-15 in 35 minutes in a second-round clash in the BWF World Tour Super 300 event, with a prize money of USD 240,000 event being played at the Taipei Arena.

Unnati Hooda beat fellow Indian Anupama Upadhyaya 21-13, 21-17 in the women's singles second round, Tharun Mannepalli overcame Shogo Ogawa of Japan 21-17, 19-21, 21-12 in 70 minute encounter while the women's doubles pair of Rashmi Ganesh and Sania Sikkandar went down to Japanese pair of Rui Hirokami/Sayaka Hobara 8-21, 10-21.

In men's singles, Maisnam Meiraba lost to seventh seed Brian Yang of Canada 23-21, 21-12 in men's singles while Akarshi Kashyap was beaten 9-21, 12-21 by local star Hung Yi-Ting in a women's singles Round of 32 match.

In a close first game in which the lead changed hands on a couple of occasions, Lee opened a 6-3 lead and extended it to 9-5. The two shuttlers waged a pitched battle till 16-16 before the Indian won five points in a row before sealing a 21-17 win.

In the second game, Lee opened a 4-0 lead and then stretched it to 9-6. The Indian shuttler mounted a comeback and went ahead 14-12, but Lee surged ahead 16-14 once again. But from 16-17, Shetty took control and won five points to open a 20-16 lead and eventually won the game 21-18 to seal a memorable victory.

--IANS

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