Badminton's current world No. 1 Chen Long of China defeated world No. 22 H.S. Prannoy of India to advance to the next round of the OUE Singapore Open 2016 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old top Chinese professional badminton player rallied after losing the opening set of the match and staged a come from behind victory of 18-21, 21-18, 21-19 to outlast his Indian opponent.

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"It was a very early start for me today, and I didn't play a very good match throughout." Chen stated. "Made quite a lot of mistakes and probably would have been less laborious for me in the third game otherwise."

Chen, who ruled the World Championships in the years 2014 and 2015, earlier set a humble target of reaching his first quarterfinal appearance at the BWF World Superseries category tournament.  The two-time All England Super Series Premier champion failed to make a breakthrough performance losing all his two attempts in his previous participations at the Singapore Open badminton tournament in 2011 and 2015 in the second round of the competition.

"This is my third time here and I have never entered the quarter finals before so I hope that I can enter this time round," the Chinese ace said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Chen will be facing another tough opponent in the next round of the badminton event when he plays the two-time champion of the tournament Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand, who ruled Singapore Open Men's singles event in the years 2007 and 2012.

The 34-year-old Ponsana is presently ranked world No. 30 by the Badminton World Federation. The elite Thai shuttler won the Thailand Open title in 2004 and bagged the crown in the 2008 Indian Open Grand Prix.

TagsChen Long, bwf 2016, bwf rankings, oue singapore open, H.S. Prannoy, boonsak Ponsana