Saina,Chetan in quarters; Arvind crashes out

The men’s top seed will take on compatriot Anup Sridhar in the quarterfinals on Friday. Sixth seeded Sridhar spanked Eshan Naqvi 21-14 21-11 in another match.

However,the biggest upset of the day was the shocking 21-15 19-21 14-21 defeat of Arvind at the hands of Malaysian Kwong Beng Chan in an hour long match.

In a match that had 111 rallies,Arvind squandered a first game lead and then found the going tough against the Malaysian,who held nerve at crucial junctures to emerge as victorious.

In the first game,the Malaysian opened up a 10-4 lead but a gutsy Arvind pocketed 14 points on the stretch to lead 18-10 before pocketing the game.

But in the second game,the Indian committed some unforced errors to allow the Malaysian to take a 10-5 lead.

Arvind tried to come back and made it 19-20 before Chan wrapped it up to draw level.

In the decider,Chan again zoomed to a 10-3 lead and although Arvind tried to come back,making it 14-18,it was all over soon.

Among other Indians in fray,fourth seed P Kashyap struggled past German Dieter Domke 21-12 19-21 21-17 and eighth seed RMV Gurusaidatt pipped Ajay Jayaram 16-21 21-8 21-12 in 42 minutes to reach the quarterfinals.

Sai Praneet B also made it the final eight when Nikhil Kanetkar retired midway with the former leading 6-2. In women’s singles,Sikki Reddy beat third seed Maja Tvrdy 21-16 21-14,qualifier PV Sindhu beat compatriot Mohita Sahdev 21-12 21-14. Seventh seed Trupti Murgunde rallied to pip Japanese Hirayama Yu 17-21 21-18 23-21,while Aditi Mutatkar prevailed over fourth seed Neha Pandit 21-16 21-18.

However,it was all over for Dhanya Nair,who went down to second seed Indonesian Maria Febe Kusumastuti 21-12 21-6. In the men’s doubles,top seed Akdhay Dewalkar and Jishnu Sanyal beat compatriots Davinder Dhillon and Hemant Duggal 21-4 21-18 and Sanave Thomas and V Diju defeated Venkat Gaurav and Manish Gupta 21-13 21-14 Second seed Tarun Kona and Arun Vishnu got the better of Sai Praneet B and Pranav Chopra 18-21 21-11 21-18 to reach the quarterfinals.

Among the women,top seeds Aparna Balan and Shruti Kurian also reached the quarters after beating Chitralekha and Parssa Naqvi 21-12 21-19 in the women’s doubles category.