Star shuttler and former world no. 1, Saina Nehwal and Singapore Open champion, Sai Praneeth have advanced into the quarter finals of the Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold after winning their respective pre-quarter finals on Thursday.
Second seeded Saina had no such problem beating the unseeded Ying Ying Lee of Malaysia as she brushed away her opponent in straight sets 21-11, 21-14. She will now face Haruko Suzuki in the last eight clash on Friday.
Earlier, third-seeded Sai Praneeth defeated ninth seeded Iskandar Zulkarnain of Malaysia 21-13, 21-18 in men’s singles competition. He will now face Malaysia’s Kantaphon Wang and is expected to reach the semi-final without much difficulty.
However, it was the end of the tournament for 12th seeded Sourabh Verma, Sai Uttejitha and the Indo-Malaysian mixed doubles combination of Prajakta Sawant and Yogendran Khrishnan.
Sourabh Verma lost the match to Brice Leverdez of France 16-21, 25-23, 11-21, Uttejitha went down to local girl Pattarasuda Chaiwan 15-21, 17-21 and Prajakta and her partner were defeated by top seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai 10-21, 9-21.