SINDHU IN QUARTERS OF INDONESIA OPEN
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 quarterfinals of the Indonesia Open here 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 women’s singles 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.
EARLY SETBACK
Prannoy then 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. Interestingly, 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, Sindhu erased an early 0-3 deficit to surge to 10-8 and 16-12 lead and held on to her own despite a charge from Ohori.
In the second game, the Indian produced a more dominating display as she moved to a 10-3 advantage and consolidated it to grab a 17-8 lead.
Ohori narrowed the lead to 12-17 but Sindhu soon shut the door comfortably.