Rising Indian shuttler Ayush Shetty caused a major upset at the Hong Kong Open Super 500 badminton tournament on Thursday, ousting 2023 World Championships silver medallist Kodai Naraoka of Japan in a hard-fought three-game contest to storm into the men’s singles quarterfinals. The 20-year-old from Karnataka, who clinched the US Open Super 300 title in June, showcased his aggressive style and superior court coverage to outplay the former world No. 2 Japanese shuttler 21-19, 12-21, 21-14 in a 72-minute thriller.

Ayush will face Lakshya Sen, his compatriot and companion at Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy, in the quarterfinals. Earlier, Lakshya reached his first men’s singles quarterfinal of a top BWF World Tour event in six months, while Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also advanced at the USD 500,000 event. Former world championships bronze medallist Lakshya, ranked 20th, rallied past compatriot HS Prannoy 15-21 21-18 21-10 in the second round. The 23-year-old Lakshya, who finished fourth at the Paris Olympics, has battled injuries and patchy form this season.

He last made the semifinals at the All England Super 1000 in March and reached the same stage at the Macau Open Super 300. In men’s doubles, world no. 9 Satwik and Chirag, fresh from their second World Championships bronze in Paris, will next face Malaysia’s Junaidi Arif and Roy King Yap. The Indian pair had a slow start, trailing 8-11 in the opening game as Sukphun and Teeraratsakul dominated. Although they fought back to 18-18, the Thai duo secured the final three points to claim the opener.

Stung by the setback, the Indians played with renewed intensity in the second game. After a keen tussle from 2-2 to 7-7, they grabbed an 11-10 lead at the mid-game break and steadily pulled ahead to take the match to the decider.