Australian Open: Manu-Sumeeth reach semis; Praneeth, Sameer ousted

India's men's doubles duo of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy advanced to the semi-finals of the Australian Open badminton tournament while it was curtains for Sameer Verma and B. Sai Praneeth after losing their respective men's singles quarter-final matches here on Friday. Second seed Praneeth fought hard for 43 minutes before going down in straight games 21-23, 13-21 to Hong Kong's Yiu Lee Cheuk at Court 1 of the Quay Centre Olympic Park here. Earlier, No.4 seed Sameer failed to exert any pressure against unseeded Chinese Guangzu Lu, who comfortably pocketed the encounter in straight games 21-14, 21-6 in 34 minutes. Meanwhile, the men's doubles match witnessed a brilliant comeback from Manu and Sumeeth against compatriots Arjun M.R. and Ramchandran Shlok in the 51-minute quarter-final. After going down 17-21 in the opening game, Manu and Sumeeth kept their nerves to win the second game with a 21-19 margin before fending off the opponents in the decider with a close 21-18 margin.