Canada Open: RMV Gurusaidutt, Pratul Joshi, Harsheel Dani advance to second round

Calgary: Indian shuttlers had a good day in office at the Canada Open as RMV Gurusaidutt, Pratul Joshi and Harsheel Dani crossed the opening hurdle to reach the second round of the USD 55,000 Grand Prix badminton tournament, in Calgary.

Glasgow Commonwealth Games bronze medalist, Gurusaidutt brushed aside Austria’s Rüdiger Gnedt 21-7 21-6 in just 18 minutes to set up a clash with local shuttler Jonathan Lai in another men’s singles match.

Pratul too defeated Canada’s Byron Holcek 21-13 21-12 without much ado and will take on Alistair Casey of Scotland in the next round.

Harsheel also produced a good show, steamrolling Canada’s Timothy Chiu 21-11 21-14. He doesn’t have a match in the second round as his opponent Vietnam’s Tien Minh Nguyen has withdrawn.

Among other Indians in fray, second seed H S Prannoy will start his campaign against Mattias Borg of Sweden, while top seed Ajay Jayaram will be up against Canada’s Martin Giuffre and fourth seed B Sai Praneeth will play against Kan Chao Yu of Chinese Taipei.

In women’s singles, Tanvi Lad will start her campaign against Denmark’s Julie Finne-Ipsen, while 2015 National Champion Ruthvika Shivani Gadde will face Kyleigh O’Donoghue of Canada.

Mixed doubles pair of Manu Attri and Ashwini Ponnappa will take on local pair of Byron Holcek and Erin O’Donoghue.