India's B Sai Praneeth and Kidambi Srikanth set up a quarterfinal clash at the Australian Open Superseries after winning their respective second-round clashes on Thursday. PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal also booked their places in the quarterfinals.
Praneeth, ranked 14 in the world this week, got the better of No. 21 Yuxiang Huang of China 21-15, 18-21, 21-13 in an hour and five minutes, while Srikanth, ranked 22 but likely to enter the top 10 this week after winning the Indonesia Open on Sunday, defeated World No. 1 Son Wan Ho of South Korea 15-21, 21-13, 21-13 in 58 minutes. Sindhu beat Xiaoxin Chen of China 21-13, 21-18 in 46 minutes. Saina beat Malaysia's Soniia Cheah 21-15, 20-22, 21-14 in 62 minutes.
Praneeth had a slightly better start in the first game, going ahead 11-8 at the changeover, after which he surged ahead to a lead of 14-9 and stayed ahead to win the game fairly comfortably. The momentum was reversed in the second game as Huang went ahead, the Chinese staving off a late fight from Praneeth to force a decider, in which the Indian once again dominated after the pair split the first six points.
Srikanth came back from the loss of the first game to win the next two in identical fashion, beating Son for the second time in two weeks and leveling his head-to-head against the Korean at 4-4.
Srikanth has hit a rich vein of form recently, after a relatively quiet start to the year on his return from an ankle injury sustained at last year's Rio Olympics. After early losses at the All England Open and the India Open, Srikanth became the first Indian man to make the final of consecutive Superseries events, in Singapore and then Indonesia, winning the latter for his second Superseries Premier title and taking his tally of Superseries titles to three, second only to Saina Nehwal (10) and ahead of PV Sindhu (two).
Srikanth faces a 1-5 head-to-head against Praneeth, who won their last meeting in the Singapore Open final and has beaten Srikanth twice already this year. In the Singapore Open final, Srikanth was guilty of squandering a 7-2 lead in the second game and employing the smash too often, but appeared to improve on some of his weaknesses in his run to the title in Indonesia.