Thailand GPG: Sai Praneeth, Parupalli Kashyap register easy wins but RMV Gurusaidutt loss hard to digest

Bhamidipati Sai Praneeth, the highest-ranked Indian participant in the 2017 Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold badminton championships, led a motley procession of his compatriots into the second round of the men’s singles, but the Indian challenge was rendered poorer by a bad loss sustained in the opening round by former world junior bronze medallist, RMV Gurusaidutt.

Praneeth, who had won the Singapore Open last month by beating close friend and sparring partner Kidambi Srikanth in the final, was not troubled by Indonesian Nathaniel Ernestan Sulistyo, who retired after twisting his ankle while trailing 9-18 in the second game, after losing the first at 10-21.

Another retirement, by Henri Hurskainen of Sweden at 11-13 in the opening game, gave Pratul Joshi his first-round encounter by the short route. However, Gurusaidutt put up an indifferent show against another Indonesian, Panji Ahmad Maulana, and was comprehensively beaten at 12-21, 12-21 in a minute under the half-hour mark.

Believe it or not, as many as 43 Indians, comprising a lengthy second string, have thrown their hats into the ring to take a shot at the modest prize money amount of $120,000 on offer at the Thailand Open, which is being held at the Nimibutr Stadium, located on the famous Rama-1 road in the Pathumwan area of central Bangkok.

Indeed, India is the fourth largest country contingent in the 479-player field from 26 nations – behind hosts Thailand, who have fielded 188 players – Indonesia, who have brought a 106-member squad to Bangkok, and Malaysia, who are represented by 58 players. China has seen fit to send 18 shuttlers, while there is a smattering of Europeans, with the largest squad of 15 members coming in from Germany.

The only elite stars who are normally seen in Super Series tournaments are the first five seeds in both the singles events – India’s Saina Nehwal (seeded second), Zhang Beiwen of the US (ranked third) and the Thai trio of Ratchanok Intanon (top-seed), Busanan Ongbumrungpan and Nichaon Jindapol.

Defending champion Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of the host nation has been given pride of place in the men’s singles, with German Marc Zwiebler and India’s Sai Praneeth taking the second and third slots, respectively, ahead of Indonesian Jonatan Christie and Frenchman Brice Leverdez. The men’s singles boast 16 seeds, in keeping with the global practice of having one seed behind every four participants.

Much to the delight of the home crowd, the left-handed Tanongsak won handily at 21-16, 21-12 against Matej Hlinican of Slovakia in exactly the same amount of time taken for Gurusaidutt’s defeat. The top seed led an impressive array of young players from his country into the second round, even as India had mixed luck on Day One.

The son of former international Uday Pawar, Anand, who has promised much but delivered little, smashed his way to a convincing 22-20, 21-12 win over Hong Kong’s Chan Yik Chak. Anand was joined in the second round by No 12 seed, Sourabh Verma, who won untroubled against Indonesia’s Howard Christeven at 21-15, 21-13, and Subhankar Dey, who was not extended by Thailand’s Setthanan Piyawatcharavijit while winning at 21-11, 21-10.

Yet another Indian winner was Shreyansh Jaiswal, who prevailed over Adulrach Namkul of the host nation at 21-19, 11-21, 21-17 in a match of short, sharp rallies that lasted just 49 minutes. And, in the final match of the day, when there was nary a spectator in the stadium, 2012 Olympian Parupalli Kashyap closed out a handy 21-16, 21-14 victory over Slovakian Milan Dratva.

However, C Rohit Yadav had no answer to the all-round skills of Indonesian fourth seed, Jonatan Christie, and fell at 12-21, 16-21. Notably, Christie had succumbed to Kidambi Srikanth in the course of Indonesia’s 1-4 defeat at the hands of India in last week’s Sudirman Cup mixed team competition.

Another Indonesian, 24-year-old Riyanto Subagja, showed the exit door to an exhausted Gulshan Kumar Kartikey with a 21-14, 21-19 triumph. This was the third match that the gallant Kartikey was playing on Tuesday, having gone through two qualifying rounds earlier in the day, when he had beaten local lad Chaiyasit Sukasem at 21-13, 21-17, and Vietnam’s Thanh Long Truang at 21-16, 16-21, 21-11.

Other Indians to lose their opening round matches in the main men’s singles draw: Rahul Yadav Chittaboina to Thailand’s 16th seeded Suppanyu Avihingsanon at 15-21, 17-21; Aditya Joshi who was beaten 11-21, 12-21 by second seeded Marc Zwiebler of Germany; left-handed Harsheel Dani who lost at 14-21, 16-21 to Indonesia’s ninth-seeded Iskandar Zulqarnain; Siril Verma who lost 16-21, 21-13, 17-21 to Indonesia’s Fikri Ihsandi Hadmadi; and Hemanth N Gowda, who lost narrowly at 19-21, 21-23 to Indonesian Henrikho Kho Wibowo.

The elimination of so many Indian men’s singles players was partially due to an exhausting schedule on Tuesday that saw a monumental 104 matches being contested on the four courts of the compact stadium, without a break from 9 am in the morning, all the way through to well beyond the scheduled closing time of 10 pm

All the preliminary round ties in the five events were gone through, including two qualifying rounds and subsequently, all 32 first-round encounters in the 64-player main draw of the men’s singles. With several matches going the full distance, and easily exceeding the average half-hour allocated for each clash, the organisers were compelled to conduct matches till well beyond the midnight mark.

One recalls the sorely irritated quip of Kiwi cricketer Colin de Grandhomme during the recent Indian Premier League, when one particular long-drawn encounter had stretched into the wee hours of the morning: “2 am is no time to be playing cricket!” Parupalli Kashyap, who finished the day’s final match at 2:25 am, produced a similar wry comment: “Just as well that, after this kind of closing time, they don’t expect us to be playing our second-round matches at 9 am on Wednesday!”