India’s HS Prannoy, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, and Ayush Shetty advanced to the men’s singles Round of 16 at the 2025 Malaysia Masters Super 500 with victories over higher ranked opponents in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
Sathish, ranked 51st in the world, registered a shock win over the third-seeded Chou Tien Chen to kickstart his campaign in the $475,000 tournament.
A brilliant day for Indian men’s singles
Sathish began the day for India and was on the money right from the start as the world No. 7 Chou struggled for rhythm. Sathish took advantage of the opponent’s struggles to take the opening game 21-13.
The 24-year-old from Chennai carried forward the momentum to the second game as well, racing to pocket it 21-14 as he wrapped up the match in 39 minutes.
Just minutes later, veteran HS Prannoy also registered a massive win as she sent the seventh seed Kenta Nishimoto packing with a 19-21, 21-17, 21-16 win in a hard-fought contest.
Prannoy, who has dropped to as low as world No. 35 in the latest BWF rankings, kept within the touching distance of Nishimoto in the opening game but lost it 19-21 narrowly.
The 32-year-old Prannoy, however, bounced back well to pocket a second game full of long rallies 21-17 to force a decider.
The Indian shuttler did not have the best of starts to the third game and trailed 7-12 at one point.
With the match fast slipping from his hands, Prannoy upped the ante to not only catch up but take the decider 21-16 and win the match.
Such was Prannoy’s dominance in the latter part of the match at Nishimoto won only four of the final 18 points played in a match which lasted an hour and 22 minutes.
The day only got better for Indian men’s singles as the young Ayush Shetty registered a second consecutive win over a higher-ranked Brian Yang of Canada to start his campaign.
Shetty, who had reached the semi-finals at the Taipei Open two weeks ago, lost a hard-fought opening game 20-22. But that did not deter him.
Under pressure to pull a rabbit out of the hat, Shetty elevated his game as he powered past Yang 21-10, 21-8 in the next two games to book his spot in the pre-quarterfinals.
And later, the former world no.1 Kidambi Srikanth further added another feat on a memorable day, knocking out the sixth-seeded Lu Guang Zu of China in a tight three-game, 23-21, 13-21, 21-11 encounter.
However, the final Indian shuttler, Priyanshu Rajawat, bowed out in the first round, losing in straight games, 15-21, 17-21, to Jason Teh of Singapore.
PV Sindhu exits
Meanwhile, PV Sindhu’s horror run of form continued to extend as she bowed out from the women’s singles first round at the 2025 Malaysia Masters.
The runner-up from the previous edition, Sindhu, hardly looked at her best.
The double Olympic medallist struggled to find her rhythm and erred frequently as Thuy Linh Nguyen registered a 21-11, 14-21, 21-15 win in 64 minutes.
The match marked Sindhu’s second consecutive loss against the Vietnamese shuttler. It also marked her fourth consecutive first-round exit on the BWF World Tour this season.
In the mixed doubles, the duo of Tanisha Crasto and Dhurv Kapila took a 21-18, 15-21, 21-14 win against A Maulana and I Jamil of Indonesia in the first round.