Sindhu sails on, Praneeth is out
Tokyo, July 28: Reigning world champion P. V. Sindhu stormed into the pre-quarterfinals of women’s singles badminton event but B. Sai Praneeth’s maiden Olympic campaign ended in agony in the men’s competition of the Tokyo Games here on Wednesday.
Sindhu, who had claimed a silver medal in the last edition in Rio, beat World
No.34 Hong Kong’s NY Cheung 21-9, 21-16 in a 35minute match to top Group ‘J’.
However, 13th seed Praneeth failed to bring his ‘A’ game to the table once again, going down 1421, 14-21 to Mark Caljouw of Netherlands in 40 minutes for his second defeat in Group ‘D’. The World No.15 Indian had earlier lost his opening round to Israel’s Misha Zilberman.
World No.29 Caljow, with this win, topped the group to qualify for the knockout stage. Only the group toppers advance to the knockout stage.
For Sindhu, it was her sixth win over Cheung in as many meetings.
“I found my rhythm from the second game on and I finished it off. It was a fast game and I made a couple of unforced errors. I changed my tactics and got things under control. This type of test is important before a big match,” Sindhu said.
Sindhu will meet Denmark’s World No.12 Mia Blichfeldt, who topped Group ‘I’.
Sindhu has a 4-1 head-tohead record against Blichfeldt, whose only win against the Indian was at the Yonex Thailand Open earlier this year.
The shuttler from Hyderabad, seeded sixth, had defeated Ksenia Polikarpova of Israel in her opening match.
Sindhu used her repertoire of strokes to good effect and her ability to vary the pace troubled the Hong Kong player.
Sindhu made her run around the court and came up with perfect placements to win points.
Cheung got a few points with her deceptive cross court returns but she committed too many unforced errors to have any chance of putting pressure on the Indian in the first game.
Sindhu led 6-2 early on before galloping to 10-3.
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