Indian qualifier Sankar Subramanian stuns world no. 2 Anders Antonsen in Swiss Open

Basel, March 21: Indian qualifier S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian pulled off an upset win over world number two, Denmark’s Anders Antonsen and sail into the quarterfinals of the Swiss Open, a BWF World Tour Super 300 tournament, on Friday. Subramanian, ranked 64th in the world, secured the biggest win of his career at St. Jakobshalle by overcoming three-time World Championship medalist Antonsen 18-21, 21-12, 21-5 in an hour and six minutes.

Subramanian will next play Christo Popov, the World No. 31 from France, who won the German Open and Hylo Open last year. Popov was also the German Open runner-up this year. Previously, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, the Commonwealth Games bronze medal-winning women’s doubles pair, advanced to the quarterfinals after defeating Germany’s Selin Hubsch and Amelie Lehmann. The ninth-ranked women’s doubles badminton pair of Treesa and Gayatri cruised to a 21-12, 21-8 victory over Germany’s world No. 119 pair, Selin and Amelie, in a 38-minute round of 16 match.

Their next match is against the eighth-seeded Hong Kong pair, Yeung Nga Ting and Yeung Pui Lam, with a chance of advance to the BWF Super 300 tournament semifinals on the line. In the men’s singles category, former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth went down to current world No. 6 Li Shifeng of China 21-15, 21-11, while Priyanshu Rajawat lost to France’s Toma Junior Popov 21-15, 21-17. Meanwhile, India’s women’s singles challenge in the competition ended with losses suffered by Anupama Upadhyaya and Isharani Baruah. Isharani lost to China’s Han Qian Xi 19-21, 21-18, 18-21, while Anupama suffered a 21-17, 21-19 defeat to Indonesian fourth seed Putri Wardani.

In mixed doubles, the Indian duo of Sathish Karunakaran and Aadya Variyatth were defeated by Taipei’s Liu Kuang Heng and Jheng Yu Chieh 14-21, 16-21. PV Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medalist, along with Malvika Bansod and rising star Anmol Kharb, had already exited the competition after first-round losses on Wednesday.