Sindhu advances with ease
Sixth seed breezes past Danish shuttler Poulsen; Prannoy overcomes China’s Qiao Bin
PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy advanced to the second round of the All England Open Badminton Championships which began at the Barclaycard Arena here on Wednesday.
Sixth seed Sindhu eased past Danish Mette Poulsen with a 21-10, 21-11 victory in 29 minutes. In the second round, the Indian will meet Indonesian Dinar Dyah Ayustine, who moved past Danish qualifier Natalia Koch Rohde 21-19, 22-20.
Prannoy defeated China’s Qiao Bin 17-21, 22-20, 21-19 in an excruciating men’s singles match that lasted an hour and 22 minutes.
But world No 19 and double Dutch Open winner Ajay Jayaram lost to China’s Huang Yuxiang 19-21, 13-21 in just 35 minutes.
India, however, fared badly in the doubles competitions. In the men’s doubles category, Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy suffered a first-round exit at the hands of qualifiers Peter Briggs and Tom Wolfenden, who won 21-19, 10-21, 21-18 in 47 minutes.
The women’s doubles pair of Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram lost to Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Ya Ching and Wu Ti Jung 19-21, 12-21 in 31 minutes.
Meanwhile, World No 1 Tai Tzu Ying overcame an early wobble to reach the second round. The World Super Series champion from Taiwan came from 16-18 down in the first game against Nitchaon Jindapol to record a 21-16, 21-14 victory over the world No 16 from Thailand.
Tai has yet to win a title in European conditions, though she won notable events in Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Dubai last year, but the way she adapted to cooler, slightly drifty conditions augured well.
“I made a few mistakes,” Tai acknowledged. “But I tried to get more control. I improved and I want to improve some more.”
Her disguise and creativity also began to blossom in the second game, in which she moved rapidly to leads of 11-4 and 14-7.
She eventually finished in a more relaxed vein, perhaps giving her more confidence ahead of a second-round collision with Minatsu Mitani.