Changzhou: Shuttlers PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth registered hard-fought victories to enter the quarterfinals of the women and men’s singles at the China Open badminton tournament here, Thursday.
Third seed Sindhu bounced back after losing a close first game to record a 21-23, 21-13, 21-18 win in her match against Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan.
The Thai girl briefly led 7-4 in the third game, but Sindhu then caught up with her at 10-all and from then onwards, she never allowed her rival to break away.
Srikanth’s match against Suppanyu Avihingsanon too went down to the wire. The seventh-seeded Indian won the first game comfortably but the Thai player restored parity by winning the second.
The decider could have gone either way but Srikanth held his nerves to advance competition with a 21-12, 15-21, 24-22 win. The third game was an exciting affair with leads changing hands frequently. Srikanth had a match point at 20-19 but hit long and the game went to deuce. Then Avihingsanon on 21-20 had a chance, but Srikanth saved the point with a cross court smash. Srikanth again led 22-21 on his serve, but after a rally of 19 shots Avihingsanon came up with a cross-court smash to save another match point. Srikanth however, did not make any mistake on the next to close out the game and the match.
However, India’s campaign ended in the doubles and mixed doubles events. Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy went down 14-21, 11-21 against top seeds from China, Siwei Zheng and Huang Yaqiong in the round of 16.
N Sikki Reddy and Pranav Jerry Chopra also met a similar fate, losing 16-21, 10-21 to sixth seeds Christinna Pedersen and Mathias Christiansen of Denmark.
In men’s doubles, Mannu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy were outplayed by Chen Hung Ling and Wang Chi-Lin 9-21, 10-21.
