Birmingham, Mar 12: Star Indian shuttler P V Sindhu cruised into the quarterfinals of the All England Championships women’s singles with a straight-game win over Sung Ji Hyun of Korea here today.
The sixth-seeded Indian Olympic silver medallist won 21-19 21-15 in a round of 16 match that lasted 49 minutes.
Sindhu next meets the winner of the round of 16 match between fourth-seeded Nozomi Okuhara of Japan and Line Hojmark Kjaersfeldt of Denmark.
Rising shuttler Lakshya Sen, however, was knocked out of tournament after losing in straight games to Victor Axelsen in the men’s singles.
Lakshay went down to the world number seven Dane 17-21 18-21 in a hard fought second round battle which lasted 45 minutes.
The 18-year old Indian, who won five titles last season, had defeated Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee 17-21 21-8 21-17 in the opening round.
On Wednesday night, star Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal’s chances of qualifying for the Olympics took a hit after she made a first-round exit, following a loss to Japanese nemesis Akane Yamaguchi.
Up against world number three Yamaguchi, it was a tough opening round for Saina, who lost 11-21 8-21 in just 28 minutes.
Saina is placed 20th on the BWF rankings with 46267 points and the 2012 London Olympics bronze-medallist needs to enter the top-16 bracket by April 28 to make the cut for the 2020 Tokyo Games.
She now needs strong performances to pocket crucial ranking points but considering that several sporting events are being cancelled in view of the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak, it remains to be seen how many she actually gets to play. (PTI)
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