Earlier, Indian shuttlers Sai Pratheek and Tanisha Crasto bowed out in the mixed doubles round of 16 while duo Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost in the women's doubles round of 16 on Wednesday.
PV Sindhu defeated the world No. 21 Chinese Taipei shuttler Hsu Wen Chi 21-10, 21-15 in 42 minutes while Prannoy comfortably advanced to the round of 16 by winning both games convincingly 21-9, 21-12 against Mongolian player Batdavaa Munkhbat.
Indian badminton team's coach Pullela Gopichand said they missed their star shuttler HS Prannoy, saying that his playing the first match of the gold medal clash would have actually helped them.
Indian men's badminton team faced a big blow just before their historic match for the first-ever gold medal at the Asian Games as in-form shutter HS Prannoy to miss the final after he suffered injury on Sunday, as per Olympics.com
Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya, seeded eighth in men’s singles, was India's biggest bet at the Hong Kong Open 2023, which is being held at Hong Kong Coliseum in Kowloon. Other top Indian badminton players like PV Sindhu, HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth skipped the Hong Kong meet