New Delhi: Defending champion Saina Nehwal reached the quarter-finals without breaking much sweat but it was RMV Gurusaidutt who made heads turn on Thursday as he stunned world No. 9 Pengyu Du of China in a thrilling three-game match in the Hong Kong Super Series.
A day after Ajay Jayaram sent packing world No. 6 Sho Sasaki of Japan, Gurusaidutt, who had to qualify to the tournament, emulated his team-mate with a stunning 15-21 21-7 21-13 victory over Pengyu in a battle which lasted 56 minutes.
The 21-year-old Andhra lad will face another formidable opponent in the quarter-finals on Friday in world No. 2 Chinese Chen Long, who beat another Indian, Arvind Bhat.
Earlier, fourth seed Saina beat Jie Yao of the Netherlands 21-17 21-17 in a 37-minute match to set up a clash with two-time All-England champion Tine Baun of Denmark.
The seventh seed Dane defeated Canada's Li Michelle 21-12 21-14 in another pre-quarterfinal match.
Jayaram also continued his fine run and booked a berth in the last-eight after beating 2003 All-England Open champion Muhammad Hafiz Hashim 21-16 21-15 in a half-an-hour battle.
He will, however, next run into top seed Malaysian Lee Chong Wei in the quarter-finals.
Arvind Bhat suffered a 10-21 8-21 defeat to world number two Chinese Long Chen to crash out of the tournament.
There was bad news for India in mixed doubles as well, as Jwala Gutta and V Diju too couldn't make it to the next round, losing 18-21 16-21 to second seeds Chen Xu and Jin Ma in their opening match that lasted only 29 minutes.
The campaign of India's men's doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas was also cut short after they lost 11-21 14-21 to second seeds Jae Sung Jung and Yong Dae Lee of Korea.
The day, however, belonged to Gurusaidutt as he made a mockery of the 41 ranking places that separate him from Pengyu. The world number 51 Indian was a set down but made a remarkable recovery to stun the Chinese.
Losing the first game after leading 8-4 at one point, Gurusaidutt made sure he didn't give his opponent an inch away in the next game as he completely dominated and bounced back in style.
The third game was no different as the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games gold medalist opened up a 8-3 lead and moved ahead in giant steps to leave the Chinese behind.
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