Sameer Verma
– Photo: Social Media
Expansion
Indian shuttlers Sameer Verma, Kiren George and Ashmita Chaliha entered the main draw of the Thailand Open Super 500 tournament after beating their opponents in the qualifying rounds. Former world number 11 Sameer, who recently won the Slovenia Open, defeated Malaysia’s Yiho Seung Joi 21-12, 21-17. Earlier in the two rounds, he got walkovers against Kristian Adinata of Indonesia and Luis Enrique of Spain.
The 28-year-old Sameer, who won three titles in 2018, will face Magnus Johanne of Denmark in the first round of the main draw. Kiran, who won the Odisha Open last year, defeated compatriot Kartikeya Gulshan Kumar 21-14 21-18 and then defeated Korea’s Jeon Hyeok 21-10 21-14. She will now face Chinese Xi Yuqi. In women’s singles, Ashmita Chaliha defeated Unnati Hooda 21-16, 13-21, 21-19. After that, Estonia’s Kristin Kuba was defeated by 21-19, 21-11. Ashmita of Assam will take on Malvika Bansod of India in the main draw.
India’s Olympian B Sai Praneeth and national champion Mithun Manjunath have been given direct entry into the main draw. They will take on Christo Popov of France and second seed Kunlawat of Thailand respectively.
Satwik-Chirag become world’s number four pair
India’s star doubles players Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have reached number four in the world badminton rankings. The Indian pair, who won the Commonwealth Games gold medal and the French Open Super 750 tournament last year, has won the Swiss Open Super 300 title this season. He has 74,651 points in 12 tournaments on his account. HS Prannoy, who won the Malaysia Masters last week, has improved one place to be ranked eighth in the world. Also, Kidambi Srikanth has returned to the top 20 with an improvement of three places. Lakshya Sen has dropped one place to be at 23rd position. PV Sindhu remained static at No.13 in women’s singles while Trisha Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand remained static at No.15 in women’s doubles.