Seeded second, Sindhu defeated world No. 49 Wen Yu Zhang of Canada 21-16, 21-12 in 30 minutes in her round of 32 match. The Indian,11th in the badminton rankings, will now take on world No. 63 Huang Yu-Husn of Chinese Taipei in the second round.
Photo: ANI
On a day when most of the participating Indians failed to cross the first round hurdle, two-time Olympic medalist P V Sindhu chalked out an easy win over Wen Yu Zhang of Canada to storm into the pre-quarterfinals of the Madrid Spain Masters badminton tournament.
Seeded second, Sindhu defeated world No. 49 Wen Yu Zhang of Canada 21-16, 21-12 in 30 minutes in her round of 32 match. The Indian,11th in the badminton rankings, will now take on world No. 63 Huang Yu-Husn of Chinese Taipei in the second round.
Sindhu’s compatriot Ashmita Chaliha, however, lost in the first round. Up against world No. 14 Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand, the Indian suffered a 21-13, 21-11 defeat in 28 minutes.
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Similarly, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran was unable to get past Jason Teh of Indonesia in the first round of the men’s singles. Despite a close fight in the second game, he lost 21-15, 21-19 against his world No. 56 opponent.
Karunakaran and his partner Aadya Variath lost 21-18, 21-14 to Indonesia’s Rinov Rivaldy and Pitha Haningtyas Menthari in mixed doubles.
Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth, who was spearheading the Indian men’s singles challenge following the withdrawal of Lakshya Sen, suffered an first-round defeat at the hands of world No. 61 Koo Takahashi of Japan.
Srikanth, ranked 27th, lost the match 21-18, 21-15.
Mithun Manjunath also lost 21-11, 21-12 to world No. 24 Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei. Tzu Wei’s compatriot Chia Hao Lee, ranked 35th, knocked out India’s Kiran George.
As a result, there won’t be any Indian challenger in the second round of the men’s singles.
B Sumeeth Reddy and N Sikki Reddy, however, were able to get the better of Chinese Taipei’s Chen Zhi-ray and Yang Ching-tun in mixed doubles.
They came back from a game down to win 16-21, 22-20, 21-14 in a 49-minute encounter to advance to the second round.
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