Syed Modi: Sourabh, Sameer sail to quarters

Siblings Sourabh and Sameer Verma hogged the limelight at the Syed Modi Memorial India Open Grand Prix Gold by reaching the quarter-finals of the prestigious badminton tournament with contrasting victories in the pre-quarterfinals, in Lucknow, on Thursday.

Sourabh stunned World No. 17 and seeded fourth, Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia 21-17, 21-17 in 38 minutes, while his brother Sameer saw off compatriot Rohit Yadav 21-14, 21-11 in a 24-minute match to keep India's flag fluttering in the singles category.

The World No. 72 Sourabh, who won the Bahrain International Challenge this year, will now take on seventh seed Yun Hu of Hong Kong on Friday.

Seventeen-year-old Sameer, who won the silver medal after finishing runner-up at the Asian Youth Championships in July, will meet another Hong Kong player Wing Ki Wong, fifth seed, at the quarter-finals on Friday.

Seeded 14th RMV Gurusaidutt also succumbed to 13-21, 19-21 defeat to second seed Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia.

In the women's singles, Indian challenge ended when PV Sindhu and Neha Pandit went down to their foreign rivals.

Sindhu suffered a 22-24, 7-21 loss to Sapsiree Taerattanachai, while Tsz Ka Chan ended Neha's stay with a 21-15, 21-14 victory.

A lot was expected of Commonwealth Games gold medalists Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa in the women's doubles competition but the third seeded Indians failed to reach the quarterfinals after losing 21-18, 14-21, 16-21 to Liu Ying Goh and Yin Loo Lim of Malaysia.

Jwala, however, entered the quarterfinals of mixed doubles event along with V Diju after the duo beat compatriots Manu Attri and Siki Reddy N 21-14, 21-11 in a lop-sided battle.

Fourth seeded men's doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas could not make it to the final eight as they lost 12-21, 21-19, 17-21 to Ricky Karanda Suwardi and Muhammad Ulinnuha of Indonesia.

Mixed doubles pair of Pranav Chopra and Prajakta Sawant too lost 11-21, 16-21 to Indonesian pair of Fran Kurniawan and Shendy Puspa Irawati.