London: Ace shuttlers PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy survived a scare to eventually advance to the quarter-finals but it was curtains for world no 2 Kidambi Srikanth, who went down 21-11, 15-21, 22-20 to Chinese Huang Yuxiang in the second round of the All England Open Badminton tournament on Thursday.
World no 3 Sindhu recovered from a mid-slump to seal the quarter-final berth with a 21-13, 13-21, 21-18 victory over Nitchaon Jindapol in a game that lasted for an hour and seven minutes.
Coming into the match Sindhu who had a 2-1 head-to-head record against the Thai Shuttler started well, jumping to a 7-3 lead in the opening set. There was no stopping her from there as the Indian piled more misery on the world no 11 who kept on finding the net at regular basis.
Jindapol however anticipated better in the second game and attacked with more intent forcing Sindhu on the back-foot and quickly surged ahead to a 7-3 lead.
Their game seemed to have reversed in the second set as Sindhu continuously hit wide, while the Thai dominated moving from 11-3 to 17-10 at one point.
Sindhu though bounced back and soon decreased the defecit to 13-17 with some precise returns. But failure to keep the streak meant the game went into the decider, as Jindapol clinched the set 21-13.
But the Rio Olympics silver-medallist was back to her best in the decider and soon took a 3-0 lead at the start. The game though slinger equally on both sides and at one point had both the shuttlers standings at 18-18. But front here Jindapol but the bet thrice and Singh obliged to claim the victory and advance into the quarters.
Srikanth lose
The highest seeded Indian at the competition and world no 2 Srikanth however failed to live up to his billing losing to world no 42 Huang Yuxiang to knock himself out of the competition.
HS Prannoy meanwhile beat Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia 21-10, 21-19 in straight sets to enter the quarters.