Saina makes a strong start
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS Ace shuttler wins second round tie in straight games, Srikanth advances
NANJING (CHINA): Top Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth notched up comfortable victories over their respective opponents to make an impressive start at the BWF World Championships on Tuesday.
Saina, who won silver and bronze in the earlier editions of the Championships, defeated Turkey’s Aliye Demirbag 21-17, 21-8 in the second round to set up a pre-quarterfinal clash with 2013 champion Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand.
The Olympic medallist Indian had received a bye in the first round.
Fifth seed Srikanth dispatched Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen 21-15, 21-16 in his opener to join compatriots HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma and B Sai Praneeth, who received a walkover after his opponent, South Korea’s Son Wan Ho, pulled out in the second round.
Srikanth, who won four titles last season, will face Spain’s Pablo Abian next while Praneeth will meet another Spaniard, Luis Enrique Penalver.
“It was a good first outing for me. My body feels good and that is all that matters to me, not thinking about anything else. The conditions are different. There is lot of drift here. So I took time to adjust to the conditions,” said Srikanth.
In other matches, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa staved off a challenge from 15th seeded German pair of Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Herttrich, registering a 10-21, 21-17, 21-18 win to enter the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals.
Satwik and Ashwini will face seventh seeded Malaysian pair of Goh Soonhuatandshevonjemie Lai next.
Later, Ashwini paired up N Sikki Reddy in the women’s doubles first round match to beat Chinese Taipei duo of Chiang Kai Hsin and Hung Shih Han 19-21, 21-10, 21-17.
In another women’s doubles match, Meghana Jakkampudi and S Poorvisha Ram crashed out after losing to Dutch duo of Debora Jille and Imke van der Aar 15-21, 21-19, 18-21.
The top mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy also gave a poor account of themselves as they lost 16-21, 4-21 to 12th seeded Indonesian pair of Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.
Tarun Kona and Saurabh Sharma also fell in the men’s doubles first round, losing 20-22, 21-18, 17-21 to Hong Kong’s Or Chin Chung and Tang Chun Man in a hard-fought battle.
RATCHANOK SURVIVES
Ratchanok Intanon survived a major scare as the women’s singles fourth seed battled back from the brink of a shock early exit. The 2013 champion and one of the favourites here looked set to go out to the unseeded Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark before recovering her poise to gleefully reach Round 3.
A lacklustre Ratchanok went down 16-21 in the first game and was trailing for much of the second, losing 16-19 at one stage. But the former world No.1 stormed back to squeeze through the sec- ond game 22-20 and then raced away in the decider 21-10 after a nervy 76 minutes.
BLISTERING MOMOTA
Japan’s Kento Momota made a brilliant start to his campaign and brushed off any talk of pressure. The 23-year-old is the man in form coming into the Nanjing showpiece and is tipped by many to win the tournament. After swatting aside Ukraine’s Artem Pochtarov 21-13, 21-12, Momota said: “I don’t take the attention at home and abroad as pressure, but instead motivation.”