Shuttler Srikanth in Hong Kong Open quarters

Kowloon (Hong Kong), Nov 15 (IANS) Shuttler Kidambi Srikanth defeated his compatriot H.S Prannoy in an all-Indian men's singles clash to enter the quarter-final of the Hong Kong open tournament here on Thursday. In a marathon match of an hour and seven minutes, the fourth seed Srikanth edged past Prannoy 18-21, 30-29, 21-18. After losing the first game, Srikanth bounced back in the second game in a hard-fought battle. The third game saw another intense battle between the two but Srikanth proved much better towards the end and wrapped up the issue. Other Indian Sameer Verma also advanced as he got a walkover from his fifth seed Chinese opponent Chen Long. In mixed doubles category, Satwik Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa crashed out of the meet losing to Lee Yang and Hsu of Chinese Taipei. The Chinese Taipei duo defeated the Indian pair 21-17, 21-11 in just 37 minutes of play. Later in the day, third seed P.V. Sindhu will face Sung Ji Hyun of South Korea in women's singles match. --IANS