Srikanth in last-8, Sindhu ousted
HONGKONG: SRIKANTH ROSE A SPOT TO NO.8 IN THE LATEST WORLD RANKINGS WHILE SINDHU SLIPPED A SPOT IN WOMEN’S RANKINGS TO BE NO.4. SAINA STAYED ON NO.9
In a mixed outing for Indian shuttlers at the $400,000 Hong Kong Open, Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma progressed to the quarter-finals while Rio Olympics silver medallist PV Sindhu went down after a tough fight on Thursday.
South Korean Sung Ji Hyun got the better of third seed Sindhu 26-24, 22-20 in 58 minutes and will take on Chinese eighth seed He Bingjiao in the women’s singles quarter-finals of the BWF World Tour Super 500 tournament.
With the victory, the world No. 10 Sung improved her record to 6-8 against the Hyderabadi.
Earlier, fourth seeded Srikanth, who had claimed silver at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, had to dig deep to outwit compatriot HS Prannoy 18-21, 30-29, 21-18 in a thrilling second round contest that lasted an hour and seven minutes.
The match between the two Pullela Gopichand protégés turned out to be a pulsating contest as the former world No.1 Srikanth had to catch up after Prannoy enjoyed early spoils.
Prannoy, who had defeated Srikanth in the National Championships final last year, moved neck-and-neck till 9-9 before jumping to a 14-10 lead. Srikanth clawed back to 15-15 before Prannoy again moved ahead to secure the opening game.
The second game was a cliffhanger as the duo played out of their skin, giving nothing away. After a close battle, Srikanth grabbed a slender 11-10 lead at the break, which evaporated as soon as Prannoy took a 15-12 lead.
Srikanth again drew parity at 16-16 and moved to 19-17. However, Prannoy took two points to make it 19-19.
After that there was nothing to separate the two as both kept taking points alternately. Srikanth managed to grab the upper limit of 30 points first to pocket the game and come back into the contest. In the decider, Srikanth continued his momentum surging to a massive lead of 11-4 at the interval. Prannoy caught up at 16-16 before Srikanth again moved ahead to seal the contest. Srikanth will next face either Kenta Nishimoto or Kantaphon Wangcharoen.
Verma qualified for the quarter-finals after his formidable opponent, Olympic champion Chen Long of China pulled out due to injury. Verma will take on either Danish Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus or local hope Lee Cheuk Yiu on Friday.
However, the mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa lost 17-21, 11-21 to Chinese Taipei’s Lee Yang and Hsu Ya Ching to bow out. Chinese Taipei’s men’s doubles pairing of Lee Jhe-Huei and Lee Yang then beat Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy 21-16, 21-15 in 27 minutes in the second round.