Sindhu, Prannoy in Q-F, Saina out

JAKARTA : Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu celebrated her 23rd birthday with a straight-game win over Japan’s Aya Ohori, while HS Prannoy eked out a three-game victory over Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei to enter the quarter-finals of the $1,250,000 Indonesia Open on Thursday.

World No 3 Sindhu, who had reached the semi-finals at Malaysia Open last week, didn’t break much sweat as she defeated Ohori, ranked 17th, 21-17, 21-14 in a 36-minute match. This is Sindhu’s fifth win over the Japanese in as many meetings.

The Indian will face either Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan or China’s He Bingjiao next. Prannoy recovered from an opening game loss to outwit Wang 21-23, 21-15, 21-13 in an entertaining men’s singles contest that lasted an hour. He is likely to meet third seed and All England champion Shi Yuqi of China.

However, Olympic medallist Saina Nehwal couldn’t get past fifth seed Chen Yufei, losing 18-21, 15-21 to the world No 5 Chinese in a 40-minute contest. Saina had defeated Chen at the same venue during the Indonesia Masters early in the year.

Sameer Verma, who had won the Swiss Open this year, also failed to put much of a fight against world No 1 Viktor Axelsen, going down 15-21, 14-21 to the reigning world champion from Denmark.Earlier, Prannoy had made good recovery after world No 17 Wang opened up a 14-10 lead in the opening game. The Indian narrowed the deficit down to 13-14 with the help of two goodlooking smashes and a quick return to serve.

Wang again curved out a 17-14 advantage with a cross-court smash. Prannoy gained two more points at the net and clawed back at 19-19 after Wang went out. Another precise return at the back line handed him a game point but he squandered it.

Prannoy made a judgemental error and miscued a net return before a lucky net chord helped Wang to pocket the opening game. Prannoy upped his game after the change of ends and moved to a 11-8 lead after Wang found the net. The Indian extended his lead to 17-12 with few swift returns. Eventually two successive net errors by Wang helped Prannoy bounce back.