Veteran Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth stunned world No. 9 Victor Lai of Canada in straight games to enter the men’s singles quarterfinals of the China Masters Super 750 badminton tournament here on Thursday.
The 33-year-old Srikanth, who had reached the US Open Super 300 final earlier this year, rallied his way to notch up an upset 21-18 21-19 win over Lai, who won his second World Championships bronze in New Delhi last month.
“I wasn’t really thinking about the score. I was only thinking about what I have been doing throughout the match and what I need to do going forward, that’s the only thing I was thinking about,” Srikanth said.
A former world No. 1 and 2021 World Championships silver-medallist, Srikanth will face Hong Kong’s Lee Cheuk Yiu in his next match.
Men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty overcame a mid-match wobble to beat French brothers Christo and Toma Junior Popov 21-15 22-24 21-9 and progress to the quarterfinals.
In women’s singles, Tanvi Sharma showed gumption to fight but imploded at the back end to go down 17-21 21-18 16-21 to Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan in the second round.