Taipei Masters: Sourabh Varma into pre-quarters

Sourabh Verma notched up successive wins on the second day of the Chinese Taipei Masters to enter the pre-quarter-finals of the Grand Prix badminton tournament, in Chinese Taipei on Wednesday.

The 2011 national champion Sourabh disposed of local shuttler Yi-Hsiang Yang 12-10, 11-3, 11-5 in the first match and then edged out Japan’s

Hashiru Shimono, seeded seventh, 11-6, 8-11, 12-10, 11-3 in 41 minutes.

Sourabh, who has reached finals in Belgium and Poland this year, will next take on Japan’s Ryotaro Maruo.

National champion Sameer Verma, younger brother of Sourabh, had a bye in the opening round. But his campaign ended in the next round after losing 10-12,

11-6, 3-11, 4-11 to Chia Hung Lu of Chinese Taipei.

Among other Indians, Shreyansh Jaisal and Rahul Yadav Chitta-boina bowed out of the tournament, which is one of the events where the BWF is testing its experimental scoring system.