Jayaram, Praneeth in semis, end of the road for Prannoy
Ajay Jayaram and B.

Ajay Jayaram and B. Sai Praneeth advanced to the semi-finals of the $55,000 Canada Open Grand Prix badminton tournament after notching up contrasting victories in the men’s singles competition in Calgary.
Top seed Jayaram defeated compatriot Harsheel Dani 21-18, 19-21, 21-8 in a hard-fought match that lasted 47 minutes.
Two-time Dutch Open winner, Jayaram will face Korea’s Lee Hyun Il, seeded third, in the semi-finals.
Fourth seed Praneeth too made it after brushing aside eighth seed Raul Must of Estonia 21-14, 21-16 in just 33 minutes to set up a clash against seventh seed Frenchman Brice Leverdez, who had ended the campaign of India’s second seed H. S. Prannoy.
Prannoy played out of his skin before going down fighting 22-20, 21-23, 18-21 to Leverdez.
In women’s singles, it was curtains for Ruthvika Shivani Gadde and Tanvi Lad.
While Ruthvika suffered a 16-21, 12-21 loss to fourth seed Linda Zetchiri of Bulgaria, Tanvi fought hard before going down 16-21, 21-15, 10-21 to third seed Iris Wang of USA.
Top seeds Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy, who have qualified for Rio Olympics, were given a walkover by Canada’s Ted (Chin Tai) Chen and Chinese Taipei’s Liao Chao Hsiang in the men’s doubles.
The Indians play Indonesia’s Andrei Adistia and Canada’s Dong Adam (Xingyu).
Rio-bound top seeded women’s doubles team Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa gave a walkover to Leanne Choo of Australia and Rachel Honderich of Canada.
In another women’s doubles match, Jakkampudi Meghana and S. Poorvisha Ram suffered a narrow 21-18, 16-21, 20-22 loss to Hung Yi-Ting and Su Hsiang Ling of Chinese Taipei.
Manu and Ashwini also gave a walkover to fourth seed Nico Ruponen and Amanda Hogstrom of Sweden in the mixed doubles competition.