PV Sindhu on Tuesday progressed to the pre-quarterfinals while ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal crashed out of the USD one million China Open World Tour Super 1000 tournament in Changzhou.
Sindhu, the Rio Olympic silver-medallist, defeated World No. 39 Saena Kawakami 21-15, 21-13 in the opening round at the Olympic Sports Center Xincheng Gymnasium.
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Fri18 Oct. 2024
The match started out as a close contest with Sindhu and Saena before the third-seeded Indian broke off to grab a 13-7 lead at one stage. She kept dominating the rallies and pocketed the opening game without much trouble.
In the second game, the world championship silver-medallist zoomed to a 6-0 lead but the Japanese managed to make it 8-10 before the Indian entered the interval with a slender 11-9 lead. After the break, Sindhu jumped to 15-11 before grabbing eight match points at 20-12 and sealed it comfortably.
In other women’s singles match, two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Saina was unable to take advantage of her first game lead over Sung Ji-Hyun of South Korea and suffered a 22-20, 8-21, 14-21 defeat in 48 minutes.
Meanwhile, the men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, the national champions, defeated Chinese Taipei’s Liao Min Chun and Su Ching-Heng 13-21 21-13 21-12 in 39 minutes to enter the second round.
