Kolkata: PV Sindhu entered the pre-quarter finals of the World Badminton Championships in Glasgow on Tuesday after she thrashed South Korean Kim Hyo Min 21-16, 21-14 in the women’s singles event.
The fourth seeded Sindhu, dominated right from the beginning as she won eight consecutive points in the first match. Kim temporarily applied the brakes on Sindhu’s rampage as she pocketed two points to make it 2-8 but Sindhu fought back to head to the break 11-5. Although the South Korean put up a fight, Sindhu was able to maintain a lead and thus ended up winning the first match 21-16.
The second game too began with Sindhu’s dominance and it looked like the Rio silver medalist would run away with this one as well before Kim fought back to reduce the lead to two points. But Sindhu had a foot ahead as they headed into the break at 11-8.
Later, the 22-year old from Hyderabad lead the game at 17-11 before winning at 21-14.
After the dominating victory, she said, “It was a good match and I was happy with the way I played. I think after Rio Olympics, I am better prepared for big events than before.”
The other Indians in the competition too had a good day as Ajay Jayaram and Singapore Open champion Sai Praneeth began their campaign with victories.
Praneeth had faced Hong Kong’s Wei Nan to and faced a tough challenge from him as the 15th seeded Indian headed into the break trailing at 9-11 in the both the games. But at the end, the Hyderabad lad defeated Wei Nan 21-18, 21-17 in straight sets in 48 minutes.
Praneeth would now face Indonesian Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in the second round.
“I was finding it difficult initially as he was playing very fast, but slowly adjusted to his pace,” said Praneeth after the match.
He further added, “I must admit that I was little under pressure coming into the match as there is a lot expected from us and everyone follows badminton these days.”
Jayaram beat 114th ranked Austrian Luka Wraber 21-14, 21-10 in just 31 minutes to proceed to the second round where he would face Mark Caljouw of Netherlands.
The Indian mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy went past the Indo-Malayasian pair of Prajakta Sawant and Yogendran Khrishnan 21-12, 21-19 to make it to the pre-quarter final stage of the World Badminton Championships. They would now go toe-to-toe against the Indonesian duo of Praveen Jordan and Debby Susanto in the next round.
After a successful mixed doubles event, Sikki Reddy joined forces with Ashwini Ponappa to defeat the duo of Malaysian Anna Cheong and Indonesian Ririn Amelia 21-15, 21-13 to proceed to the next round.
But the mixed doubles pairs of B Sumeeth Reddy-Ashwini Ponappa and Satwick Sairaj-K Maneesha were handed defeats which knocked them out the tournament.
The pair of Ashwini and Sumeeth lost 17-21, 21-18 and 5-21 to the Chinese pair of Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping.
Satwick and Maneesha were too defeated
20-22, 18-21 by the Denmark duo of Mathias Christiansen and Sara Thygesen.
Earlier on the first day, ace Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma registered victories to their names. Srikanth had defeated Russian Sergey Sirant 21-13, 21-12 in the first round which lasted for just 28 minutes to enter into the next round. Sameer Verma too had defeated Spanish Pablo Abian after he had won the first match 21-8. Sameer led the second game at 17-4 before Abian bowed out of the match on medical grounds.
Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal would kick off her campaign against Sabrina Jaquet in the second round on Wednesday.