4 min readMay 28, 2026 07:05 PM IST
When two smashes inexplicably went into the net as HS Prannoy led 14-11 in the decider against Loh Kean Yew, the Indian who had been playing very steady, looked up quizically. Not heavenwards asking for divine intervention, more like there was an invisible A/C vent above the net blasting the shuttle down.
He went on to lose the match to the local Singaporean who was imploding right until that point with his errors, 18-21, 21-16, 21-15. Cruising as he was, Prannoy couldn’t have explained going from 14-11 to 15-21, with 7 of those 10 points lost, dumped into the net, dipping down right before crossing the meshing, as he lost Round 2 of the Super 750, while looking very controlled till that juncture.
Prannoy tried everything as soon as those two smashes plunged into the net. He attempted a couple of high parallels, which also ended up in the net. He even cut the distance and played from closer to the net. But try as he might, the shuttle wouldn’t cross to the other side.
His circumspect game, as he refrained from smashing, led to more errors as Kean Yew went on a spree right up to 19-11. From there, a win was two points away, as the local interest stayed alive for yet another day. The final point saw Prannoy attempt to hit a push hard to compensate, as it flew past the backline.
While the two smashes in the net could be vaguely explained away as a suddenly tiring shoulder, both the pushes and the lifts not going forth was tough to explain. At any rate, Prannoy got dragged down right when he was taking off against the attacking Kean Yew, a day after he had defeated World No 5 Jonatan Christie, and was looking good to make quarters.
Lakshya Sen picked two points before Kunlavut Vitidsarn opted out of the contest, gesturing to stiffness on his lower back. He plays Koki Watanabe in quarters on Friday.
PV Sindhu continues her striving towards trying to beat An Se-young, with her 9th shy at finally beating the World No 1. She was clinical against World No 19 Riko Gunji who offered no resistance, losing 21-9, 21-12 tamely.
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Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will need to be on their toes playing Malaysian mavericks Kang Khai Xing and Aaron Tai, their All England conquerors.
PV Sindhu took to Twitter to praise the Malaysian Tai for his funny strokes, and the duo will be the latest riddle needing solving by coach Tan Kim Her. But more crucially, Satwik and Chirag will need to keep a check on their nerves.
Taiwanese Lee Je-Hyui and Yang Po-hsuan made life difficult for the Indians before they were stubbed out 21-15, 11-21, 21-18 on Thursday. Satwik remained a tad error-prone at the net, but Chirag ensured he had the troubleshooting means to race to a win from 17-17 in the decider. While Satwik is known to steady his game after a wobble like in Round 2, Chirag will have to continue his net forays and calm smashing from the back.
While opponents fancy their chances in fast parallels against the duo, Satwik-Chirag have propped up some of the other aspects of their game that they deploy to break the rhythm. There’s no dearth of wild strokes in their arsenal either.
