Hylo Open: Bansod among four Indians to battle for semifinal spot

Saarbrucken [Germany], November 1 : Four Indian shuttlers, Malvika Bansod, Ayush Shetty, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran and Rakshitha Sree secured crucial wins to move into the quarterfinals of the ongoing Hylo Open badminton tournament in Germany.
On Thursday, Bansod defeated unseeded Irina Amalie Andersen 21-13, 21-16 in her round of 16 match to move into the quarterfinals, as per Olympics.com.
Bansod, the winner of Azerbaijan International in February and US Open semifinalist in June, raced to a 8-1 lead and capitalised on her momentum to secure an easy opening game. In the second, she trailed by 4-8 at one point, but made a comeback to clinch the match in 41 minutes.
23-year-old Bansod, ranked 34th, will be facing world number 31 and fourth-seed Nguyen Thuy Linh of Vietnam for a place in the semi-finals.
Also, India's 17-year-old Rakshitha shocked the two-time Commonwealth Games medalist and second seed Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland with a dominating 21-14, 21-12 win to book a match with eight-seeded Dawall Jakobsen of Denmark in the quarter-finals.
Coming to the men's singles competition, 19-year-old Ayush Shetty, the bronze medalist at the Junior World Championships last year, defeated Italy's Giovanni Toti 21-13, 21-9, setting up a quarterfinal clash with Finland's Kalle Koljonen.
Sathish Kumar Karunakaran, seeded seventh set up QF clash with Christo Popov of France. He was also a part of the mixed doubles competition with Aadya Variyath, but lost to French pair of Tom Lalot Trescarte and Elsa Jacob 21-19, 21-13.