On a comeback trail, Saina Nehwal made a resounding start to her campaign at the Hong Kong Super Series, advancing to the second round of women's singles with a hard-fought win over Thailand's Porntip Buranaprasertsuk, here today.
Meanwhile Sindhu, on the other hand, had an easy outing as she notched up a 21-13, 21-16 win over Susanto Yulia Yosephin of Indonesia in 32 minutes.
The Rio Olympics silver-medallist Indian hardly broke a sweat in the first game after the two rivals were locked 2-2 early on. Sindhu left her rival way behind after that as she easily took the first game.
The second game was a tight contest with the two opponents refusing to yield an inch to each other. After being levelled at 9-9, Sindhu zoomed ahead to 12-9 but her Indonesian rival fought back to tie the score at 16-16.
Sindhu was in no mood to allow her opponent to come back as she took the next five successive points to take the second game and wrap up the match.
In the second round, Sindhu will take on Hsu Ya Ching of Chinese Taipei, who upset seventh seed Sing Ji Hyun of Korea in the first round.
Scores even
London Olympics bronze medallist, Saina, who had lost to Porntip in the opening round at China Open after making a comeback following a three-month lay-off due to injury, avenged the loss with a 12-21 21-19 21-17 win over the World No. 12 Thai shuttler.
The fifth seeded Indian, who is looking to seal her Dubai Super Series Final spot, will next take on the winner of the match between Chiang Mei Hui and Japan's Sayaka Sato at the Hong Kong Coliseum.
In men's singles, Swiss Open winner H.S. Prannoy defeated China's Qiao Bin 21-16, 21-18, while national champion Sameer Verma edged past Japan's Takuma Ueda 22-20, 21-18 in another match.
Men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy, who represented India at the Rio Olympics, suffered a 15-21, 8-21 loss to Korean combo of Solgyu Choi and KO Sung Hyun.
Comments
SHARE