Orleans Masters 2025: HS Prannoy, Kidambi Srikanth Advance to Second Round

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Top Indian shuttlers HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth registered contrasting wins in the main draw openers to reach the second round of the ongoing Orleans Masters 2025 badminton tournament in France on Wednesday (March 5).

Asian Games bronze medallist Prannoy secured a hard-fought victory over Chinese Taipei's TW Wang by a scoreline of 21-11, 20-22, 21-9 in his men's singles round of 32 contest that lasted an hour and 9 minutes on court 2 at the Palais des Sports in Orleans.

Former world championship medallist Srikanth, on the other hand, had to come through the qualifiers to book his place in the main draw, where he opened his campaign with a straight games win over Japan's Koo Takahashi by a scoreline of 21-19, 21-14 in 40 minutes.

Ayush Shetty also moved to the next round in men's singles with a win in two successive games, defeating former world champion and third seed Loh Kean Yew of Singapore by 21-17, 21-9.

However, there were disappointments in the other singles contests. Kiran Goerge suffered a setback, losing his men's singles round of 32 clash to Singapore J Teh by 15-21, 21-16, 21-10. Priyanshu Rajawat lost in straight games 17-21, 7-21 to fourth seed Alex Lainer of France.

Also, qualifier Sankar Subramanian went down in straight games 13-21, 8-21 against fifth seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan, while Sathish Kumar Karunakaran was ousted by Ireland's Nhat Nguyen following a straight games 18-21, 11-21 defeat on Wednesday (March 5).

In the women's singles competition, Malvika Bansod suffered an injury, giving a walkover to Japan's Riko Gunji after Unnati Hooda suffered a loss in the round of 32 to South Korea's An SY by 21-9, 21-15.

In doubles, mixed pair Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde as well as the men's duo of Pruthvi Roy and Sai Pratheek K entered the second round, which will be staged on Thursday (March 6).