Badminton News: Young Indian star, Kiran George managed to create an upset by beating former Chinese world number 2, Shi Yuqi in the first round of the Thailand Open World Tour Super 500 tournament.

2023 Odisha Open champion Kiran George, an academy product of Prakash Padukone, won a straight match 21-18 22-20 over third seed Shi Yuqi, a silver medalist at the Championships of the world 2018.

Kiran George will next face last week’s Malaysian Masters runner-up Weng Hong Yang from China.

In other matches, Ashmita Chalika, who made it through the qualifying round, beat compatriot Malvika Bansod 17-21 14-21, while London Olympic bronze medalist Saina Nehwal beat Canadian Wen Yu Zhang in two matches easy 21-13 21-7.

Ashmita will next face Spain’s Rio 2016 Olympics gold medalist Carolina Marin who is the fourth seed, while Saina will meet third seed He Bing Jiao of China.

Kidambi Srikanth, the 2021 world championship silver medalist, lost an 8-21, 21-16, 14-21 draw to Weng Hong Yang of China, who reached the Malaysia Masters final last week.

Praneeth, who is competing at the Tokyo Olympics, also found France’s Christo Popov too much to handle, losing 14-21, 16-21 in the other men’s singles matches.

Orleans Masters winner Priyanshu Rajawat also failed to clear the opening hurdle, losing in straight matches to Malaysian representative Ng Tze Yong 19-21, 10-21.

Former world number 11, Sameer Verma, who just won the 2023 Slovenia Open, lost 15-21 and 15-21 to Danish representative, Magnus Johannesen.

Among other Indian representatives, PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will play at a later date.

The BWF World Tour is divided into six tiers, namely World Tour Finals, four Super 1000s, six Super 750s, seven Super 500s and 11 Super 300s respectively. Another tournament category, the BWF Tour Super 100 tier, also offers ranking points. The Super 500 is a Tier 2 (Tier 4) event in the BWF Tournament Ranking System.

Article Tags: Kiran George, Shi Yuqi, Thailand Open 2023