Nanjing (China): Indian star shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth started their campaign on winning notes notching up victories over their respective opponents here at Badminton World Championship, Tuesday.
Saina, a winner of silver and bronze medals in the earlier editions of the championship defeated Turkey’s Aliye Demirbag 21-17, 21-8 in the second round. She will face 2013 champion Ratchanok Inthanon of Thailand in the pre-quarterfinals. The Olympic bronze medallist Indian had received a bye in the first round.
However, it was an easy outing for fifth seed Srikanth as he dispatched Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen 21-15, 21-16 in his campaign opener to join compatriots HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma and B Sai Praneeth in the second round. Sai Praneeth also received a walkover after his opponent, Korea’s Son Wan Ho, pulled out while Sameer defeated Lucas Corvee of France 21-13, 21-10 in just 38 minutes. He will next face Lin Dan of China.
Srikanth, who won four titles last season, will face Spain’s Pablo Abian next, while Praneeth will meet another Spaniard, Luis Enrique Penalver.
Meanwhile, the Indian mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa came from a set down to beat 15th seeded German pair of Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Herttrich 10-21, 21-17, 21-18 to enter the pre-quarterfinals. The Indian pair will next face seventh seeded Malaysian pair of Goh Soon Huat and Shevon Jemie Lai.
The men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty also won their campaign opener defeating the English pair of Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge 21-19, 12-21, 21-19. Satwiksairaj and Chirag will meet Danish pair of Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the next round.
However, the recently concluded Russian Open silver medallists Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg went down 12-21, 12-21 against the sixth seeded husband-wife English combination of Chris Adcock and Gabrielle Adcock in another mixed doubles second round match.
The promising men’s doubles pair of Arjun MR and Ramchandran Shlok also couldn’t cross the opening hurdle, losing 14-21, 15-21 to the Malaysian pair of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi. The top mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy also gave a poor account of themselves as they lost 16-21, 4-21 to 12th seeded Indonesian pair of Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.
Tarun Kona and Saurabh Sharma also fell in the men’s doubles first round losing 20-22, 21-18, 17-21 to Hong Kong’s Or Chin Chung and Tang Chun Man in a hard-fought battle.