Sindhu, Praneeth power on
Sikki makes winning start in mixed and women’s doubles; Sumeeth, Satwik fall
Glasgow, Aug. 22: Olympic silver medallist P. V. Sindhu advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the women’s singles competition after defeating Korea’s Kim Hyo Min in the second round of the World badminton championship on Tuesday.
Sindhu, who twice won bronze medals at the 2013 and 2014 editions, notched up a 21-16, 21-14 win over Kim in a 49-minute match, to extend her head-to-head record against the Korean to 4-1 in five meetings.
The 22-year-old, who received a bye in the opening round, will face either Russian’s Evgeniya Kosetskaya or Hong Kong’s Cheung Ngan Yi, 13th seed, in the next round.
Singapore Open champion B. Sai Praneeth also made a positive start to his campaign, registering a straight-game win over Hong Kong’s Wei Nan to reach the second round of men’s singles event.
Praneeth, seeded 15th, fought back from 5-9 and 14-16 in the opening game and then erased a deficit of 10-13 and 15-17 in the second game to eventually see off Wei Nan 21-18, 2117 in a 48-minute match.
The 25-year-old from Hyderabad will next take on Indonesia’s Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, who is the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic and World Junior Championships boys’ bronze medallist.
“I was expecting a tough match. I changed my game but the match was getting close. He made some small mistakes and I won. I am happy that I could pull off the match today as I know this is a tough match. Tomorrow it would be another difficult match and I hope I can win,” Praneeth said.
India’s top mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy, seeded 15th, who had won the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold title, defeated Indo-Malaysian combo of Prajakta Sawant and Yogendran Khrishnan 21-12, 21-19.
Sikki then combined with Ashwini Ponnappa in the women’s doubles to beat IndonesianMalaysian combo of Ririn Amelia and Anna Ching Yik Cheong 21-15, 21-13 to make a bright start.
However, disappointment was in store for India in the other mixed doubles matches as B. Sumeeth Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa, and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Maneesha K. suffered contrasting losses to bow out of the event.
Sumeeth and Ashwini, who had reached the finals of Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold in January, went down fighting 17-21, 21-18, 5-21 to 13th seeded Chinese pair of Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping, while Satwiksairaj and Maneesha lost 20-22, 18-21 to 14th seeded Denmark duo of Mathias Christiansen and Sara Thygesen.
The men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty also found the going tough against Japanese combo of Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe, losing 8-21, 1221 in a 32-minute match.
The last time Sindhu had faced Kim, she had suffered a straight-game defeat at 2016 Australian Open. Sindhu came out all guns blazing on Tuesday as she dished out a dominating game to zoom to a 8-0 lead in the first game.
In the second game, Sindhu once again opened up a 8-3 lead. The Korean managed to reduce the margin to 8-10 but Sindhu didn’t allow Kim to put up a challenge as she kept on surging ahead. —