SINDHU ENTERS PRE QUARTERS, SAINA BOWS OUT IN CHING OPEN
Sindhu enters pre-quarters, Saina bows out in China Open
Olympic and world championship silver-medallist P V Sindhu Tuesday progressed to the pre-quarter-finals but Saina Nehwal bowed out after a narrow loss at the USD one million China Open World Tour Super 1000 tournament here.
The third-seeded Sindhu, who had clinched the China Open title in 2016, defeated World No. 39 Saena Kawakami of Japan 21-15, 21-13 in the opening round at the Olympic Sports Center Xincheng Gymnasium.
However, two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist and former world No.1 Saina, who was the first Indian to win the China title in 2014, lost 22-20 8-21 14-21 to Korea’s Sung Ji Hyun in a 48minute opener.
Men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, the national champions, defeated Chinese Taipei’s Liao Min Chun and Su Ching Heng 13-21 21-13 21-12 in 39 minutes to enter the second round. The women’s singles match between Sindhu and Saena started out as a close contest before the Indian broke off to grab a 13-7 lead at one stage.
She kept dominating the rallies and pocketed the opening game without much trouble.
In the second game, Sindhu zoomed to a 6-0 lead but Saena managed to make it 8-10 before the Indian entered the interval with a slender 11-9 lead.
After the break, Sindhu jumped to 15-11 before grabbing eight match points at 20-12 and sealed it comfortably.
Earlier,the 28-year-old Saina was swept aside 20-22, 21-8, 21-14 by her South Korean opponent in a closely-contested match.
Clinching the first game in a nail-biting clash, Nehwal set the tone right against highly experienced Ji-Hyun.
The South Korean shuttler, however, made a solid comeback and attacked the Indian player right from the beginning of the second game. She clinched three consecutive points to take an early 4-1 lead.
The Asian Games Bronze medalist failed to cope with rising the point difference as the Korean completely outplayed her to register a dominating 21-8 victory in the second game.
The deciding game started with the Korean shuttler again taking the initial lead of three points.
After trailing the game 6-14, Nehwal tried to gain some momentum as she clinched a couple of points and fought hard to reduce the point difference to 14-19.
The Korean player, however, gave no further chance of revival to the Indian shuttler as she clinched the deciding game 21-14.