Jakarta: Top Indian women shuttlers Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu advanced to the second round of the $350,000 Indonesia Masters Super 500 Badminton tournament here on Wednesday.
Depite it being the first round, it was contrasting wins for both the shuttlers, with London Olympics bronze medallist Saina forced to dig deep to overcome the world no. 7 Chen Yufei of China 22-24, 21-15, 21-14, while Sindhu didn’t have t o sweat much before eking out a comfortable 21-13, 21-10 win over Hanna Raramdini.
Saina who just returned from a ankle injury will next face China’s Chen Xiaoxin, while world no. 4 Goh Jin Wei in the next round on Thursday.
It however didn’t start well for the 27 year-old, who fought back from being 4-9 down to level at 16-16 and took the lead. But standing at 20-17 Chen erased the deficit to eventually win the first set.
The second set however completely belonged to the Indian who took a big lead at 7-4. Chen nonetheless clawed back to decrease the lead to 11-10, but Saina stepped up the game to take it to the decider. Both fought hand on hands on the final set but standing at 12-12 Nehwal broke off to walk away with the match.
In the doubles category, the young Indian pair of Satwik Sairaj RankiReddy and Chirag Shetty overcame the opening hurdle after defeating the eight seeded pair of Takuto Inque and Yuki Kaneko of Japan 21-15, 21-17 and will next take on Chinese Taipei’s Liao Min Chun and Su Ching Heng in the second round.
Earlier, Sameer Verma who made a return from shoulder injury suffered a 16-21, 21-12, 10-21 defeat to Japan’s Kazumasa Sakai to crash out of the men’s singles round. While the men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy lost 18-21, 21-16, 16-21 to Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han to bow out.