Three Indian shuttlers in quarters

India No. 1 Pullela Gopichand, Aparna Popat and Abhinn Shyam Gupta entered the quarter-finals of the singles event at the 17th Commonwealth Games in Manchester on Thursday.

In the men's singles, Gopichand defeated Stephan Wojcikiewicz of Canada 7-0, 7-1, 7-1 while Abhinn edged past Colin Haughton of England 8-6, 7-5, 7-3.

The third Indian in the last 16, Nikhil Kanetkar went down fighting to the second seed Tsuen Seng Lee of Malaysia in a marathon five-setter. Lee won the match 7-3, 4-7, 7-4, 4-7, 7-5.

In the women's event, Aparna Popat defeated Amrita Samwaram of Mauritius 7-0, 7-1, 7-0, while B R Meenakshi and Trupti Murgunde both crashed out of the event.

Kelly Morgan of Wales defeated Meenakshi 7-3, 7-3, 7-1 while Murgunde went down to Mee Fen Ng of Malaysia 7-5, 2-7, 3-7, 7-4, 2-7.

In the men's doubles event, sixth seeds Valiyaveetil Diju and Thomas Sanave defeated David Geddes and Bruce Topping of the Northern Ireland 7-5, 7-2, 7-4 to enter the quarter-finals. Earlier they beat the Welsh pair of Neil Cottrill and Liam Ingram 7-3, 7-2, 7-5 in the third round.

While in the women's doubles event, Neelima Choudary and Ch Deepty went down fighting to Elinor Middlemiss and Kirsteen Mcewan of Scotland 5-7, 7-3, 8-7, 4-7, 0-7 in the pre-quarter-finals.

Valiyaveetil Diju and Jwala Gutta also crashed out of the mixed doubles event losing to Russell Hogg and Kirsteen Mcewan of Scotland 2-7, 5-7, 6-8 in the pre-quarter-finals of the mixed doubles event.