Glasgow, Aug 22:
Indians continued their good run at the World Badminton Championship with P V Sindhu, B Sai Praneeth and Ajay Jayaram registering straight game victories in singles events here today.
Olympic silver medallist Sindhu, who received a bye in the first round, advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the women’s singles competition after defeating Korea’s Kim Hyo Min in the second round.
Sindhu, who twice won bronze medals at the 2013 and 2014 editions, notched up a 21-16 21-14 win over Kim in a 49-minute match, to extend her head-to-head record against the Korean to 4-1 in five meetings.
The 22-year-old will face either Russian’s Evgeniya Kosetskaya or Hong Kong’s Cheung Ngan Yi, 13th seed, in the next round.
Singapore Open champion Praneeth made a positive start to his campaign, registering a straight-game win over Hong Kong’s Wei Nan to reach the second round of men’s singles event.
Praneeth, seeded 15th, fought back from 5-9 and 14-16 deficit in the opening game and 10-13 and 15-17 in the second but fought back to eventually see off Wei Nan 21-18 21-17 in a 48-minute match.
The 25-year-old from Hyderabad will next take on Indonesia’s Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, who is the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic and World Junior Championships boys’ singles bronze medallist.
“I was expecting a tough match. I changed my game but the match was getting close. He made some small mistakes and I won. I am happy that I could pull off the match today as I know this is a tough match. Tomorrow it would be another difficult match and I hope I can win,” Praneeth said.
Experienced shuttler Ajay Jayaram also produced a dominating performance to storm into the second round with a 21-14 21-12 win over Austria’s Luka Wraber. He will take on The Netherland’s Mark Caljouw next.
Women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy defeated Indonesian-Malaysian combo of Ririn Amelia and Anna Ching Yik Cheong 21-15 21-13 to make a bright start to their campaign.
India’s top mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy, seeded 15th, who had won the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold title, also defeated Indo-Malaysian combo of Prajakta Sawant and Yogendran Khrishnan 21-12 21-19 to reach the next round.
However, disappointment was at store for India in the other mixed doubles matches as B Sumeeth Reddy and Ashwini, and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Maneesha K suffered contrasting losses to bow out of the tournament.
Sumeeth and Ashwini, who had reached the finals of Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold in January, went down fighting 17-21 21- 18 5-21 to 13th seeded Chinese pair of Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping, while Satwiksairaj and Maneesha lost 20-22 18-21 to 14th seeded Denmark duo of Mathias Christiansen and Sara Thygesen. (PTI)
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