New Delhi: Top shuttler B Sai Praneeth's hopes of making the Indian team for the upcoming major team events were dashed after he failed to top stage 2A group on day 3 of BAI's selection trials here on Sunday.
Praneeth, ranked World number
19, suffered a 21-23, 21-11, 16-21 loss to fast-rising Kiran George, who had
claimed the Odisha Open Super 100 title in January.
Later in the day, Praneeth
beat Ansal Yadav 21-16, 21-9 to finish second best in stage 2A group at the KD
Jadhav Hall inside Indira Gandhi Stadium Complex.
The trials are being held to
pick teams for the Commonwealth Games, Thomas and Uber Cup and Asian Games.
According to the format, only
the winners of the four groups in the second stage will compete for rank 1 to 4
in a round-robin format, while the runners-up from each group will fight for
5-8 positions and third-placed players will aim for 9 to 12 positions.
Praneeth will compete for rank
5 to 8 next.
Badminton Association of India
has already handed direct selection to Lakshya Sen and Kidambi Srikanth as they
are ranked inside top 15 and HS Prannoy on the basis of his recent performance
in the international circuit.
Only one men's singles player
will be picked from the trials for the Asian Games and Thomas Cup.
Kiran, who had made it to the
team for the Sudirman Cup and Thomas Cup after topping the selection trials in
September last year, looks a frontrunner to once again get selected as he
continued his unbeaten run on day 3.
A product of Prakash Padukone
academy, George outwitted national champion Sourabh Varma 21-15, 23-21 in his
second match of the stage 2A group to emerge as winner.
George will now compete with
Sameer Verma (winner of stage 2D), Haryana's Ravi (winner of stage 2C) and
Priyanshu Rajawat (winner of stage 2B) for rank 1 to 4.
A former world number 11
Sameer, who is making a comeback after recovering from a calf injury, beat
Raghu M 21-12, 21-11 but lost to Maisnam Meiraba 21-15, 19-21, 11-21 in the
third and last match of his group.
Sameer was tied with Mithun
Manjunath with two victories and one defeat but made it through on the basis of
difference of games won and lost.
Ditto for Priyanshu, who
emerged as group winner after finishing with two wins and a loss like Kartikey
Gulshan Kumar in stage 2B.
Ravi, on the other hand, beat
Alap Mishra and Arjun Rehani to emerge as winner of stage 2C group.
In women's singles, Aakarshi
Kashyap, Ashmita Chaliha, Aditi Bhatt, and Unnati Hooda emerged as winners of
Stage 2A, stage 2B, Stage 2C, and Stage 2D respectively and will fight for 1 to
4 positions.
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