Sri Lanka’s champion shuttler Niluka Karunaratne was knocked out of the Badminton Grand Prix Canada Open in the third round of the Men’s Single after losing against Brice Leverdez of France.
Participating in his final set of events before he heads off to the Rio Olympics to do the bidding for Sri Lanka, Karunaratne had a fine start to his Candada Open campaign winning the first two ties with ease.
Facing Jason Ho-Shue of Canada in the first round, Karunaratne secured an easy 21-13 & 21-14 victory to advance to the next round of play. The second round game that was played on the 29th of June was yet another easy one for the Sri Lankan winning the tie 21-8 & 21-17.
The round three game was a tough call for Karunaratne, who went down fighting. His opponent, Brice Leverdez of France, who is currently ranked 40th in the Men’s Singles, went on to win the first set but the determined Lankan champion came back to win the second set. With the final set being the deciding game, Leverdez cruised to 14-21 to advance to the quarterfinals.
It was a good stint for Karunaratne as he is currently expected to get to the US Open before returning to the country to leave for Rio de Janeiro.
He will be one of Sri Lanka’s key prospects in the upcoming Olympics taking into consideration his exceptional performance in the last summer Olympics.
There is also a possibility that Karunaratne will captain the Sri Lankan contingent for Rio 2016, having already captained the team in 2012.
