Srikanth off to winning start
China Open: Ashwini-Satwik stun CWG silver medallists
Indian mixed doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa on Wednesday shocked Commonwealth Games silver medallists England's Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith to enter the pre-quarterfinals of the USD 1 million China Open here.
World No 25 Satwiksairaj and Ashwini, who had lost twice to the English combination in the past, executed their plan well to notch up a 21-13, 20-22, 21-17 win in a match that lasted an hour and three minutes.
"It was a good match. We were pretty confident today at crucial moments. We struck to our plans so it became a little easy in the end," Satwik said.
The Indian pair will face top seed Chinese combination of Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong.
Seventh seed Srikanth, who had reached the quarterfinals last week at Japan Open, too was through to the pre-quarterfinals after beating Denmark's Rasmus Gemke 21-9 21-19 to set up a meeting with Thailand's Suppanyu Avihingsanon.
However, men's doubles pair of Satwik and Chirag Shetty, who had won a silver at the Commonwealth Games, lost 19-21 20-22 to Goh V Shem and Tan Wee Kiong of Malaysia.
CWG bronze medallists Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy also went down 10-21 18-21 to Korean combination of Kim So Yeong and Kong Hee Yong in women's doubles.
The mixed doubles match turned out to be a hardfought battle right from the start as the Indian and English pair moved together till 4-4. Satwik and Ashwini then reeled off four points to open up a 8-4 lead. From there on, the duo kept its distance to grab the opening game without much ado.
In the second game, Marcus and Lauren jumped to a 6-1 lead before grabbing a 6 advantage at the break. The Indian pair however slowly fought its way to level at 2020 but the English combination produced the required two points to stay in the contest.
In the decider, Satwik and Ashwin stepped up and surged to a 7-1 advantage. The duo led 11-5 at the breather. After the break, Marcus and Lauren managed to narrow the gap to 1315 but the Indian duo marched ahead to 18-13 and eventually sealed the match.
However, H S Prannoy lost his first round match against eighth seed Ng Ka Long Angus of Hong Kong 16-21, 12-21 to make an early exit from the tournament.
BAI incentive
Meanwhile, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) has distributed cash incentive of Rs 1.6 crores to the member state associations for development of the sport across the country.
The decision was taken on Monday during the Executive Council (EC) meeting, presided over by BAI President Himanta Biswa Sarma.
The cash incentives will be distributed among the 32 state associations with each receiving a sum of Rs 5 lakh for the development and promotion of the sport in the grassroots level.
"This financial assistance to state associations is the beginning of our vision of making all states self-sustaining in the longer run. It will help them promote and develop badminton in their region more assiduously," Sarma said.
India have become a major force in world badminton with P V Sindhu emerging as the face with silver medals in all the major events, including 2016 Rio Olympics, World Championship (2017 and 2018), Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.