Ajay Jayaram reaches quarterfinals of Swiss Open

Indian shuttler Ajay Jayaram inflicted a straight-game defeat on Tzu Wei Wang of Chinese Taipei to reach the quarterfinals of USD 120,000 Swiss Grand Prix Gold badminton championship here today.

Jayaram, who had won the Dutch Open last year, prevailed over 13th seed Wang 21-17 21-16 in a 35-minute men's singles match to set up a clash with Japan's Kazumasa Sakai.

Interestingly, the 27-year-old from Bangalore had beaten Wang early this month in the qualification round of All England Championship in Birmingham.

Jayaram had notched up a hard-fought 21-7 21-23 21-19 win over Belgium's Yuhan Tan to reach the prequarterfinals last night.

Anand Pawar, however, went down fighting 21-19 19-21 15-21 to Sakai in another prequarterfinal match that lasted for 57 minutes at St. Jakobshalle stadium.

Top seed K Srikanth and young B Sai Praneeth also reached the prequarterfinals.

Among other Indians, men's doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar lost 17-21 13-21 to Indonesian duo of Angga Pratama and Ricky Karanda Suwardi.

Other Indian men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy also faced defeat, going down 18-21 21-18 16-21 to another Indonesian pair of Wahyu Nayaka Arya Pankaryanira and Ade Yusuf.