Bangkok: Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu was the only bright spot on a dismal day for Indian badminton as she cruised into the quarterfinals with a straight-game win over Hong Kong’s Yip Pui Yin at the Thailand Open badminton tournament here Thursday.
While most of the Indian shuttlers found the going tough, World No.3 Sindhu, continued her impressive run to win 21-16, 21-14 in just 37 minutes to set up a fight with USA’s Soniia Cheah in the next round Friday.
Sindhu never looked in danger as she lead 7-3 at one stage in the opening game and extended the advantage to 14-7 and then 19-11. Pui Yin tried to make a comeback and narrowed the deficit to 16-19 once but the Indian zoomed ahead to pocket the first game.
In the second game too, Sindhu opened up 8-4 advantage and once again Pui Yin came close with three straight points but the Indian jumped to 12-7 lead and eventually shut the door on her opponent comfortably.
However, it was a bad day for men’s as Parupalli Kashyap and HS Prannoy bowed out of the tournament losing their respective matches.
Kashyap went down 18-21, 21-18, 19-21 to Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama, while fourth seed Prannoy was beaten 18-21, 14-21 by Indonesia’s Sony Dwi Kuncoro.
In the men’s doubles, the Indian pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy bowed in front of Japanese World No.16 pair of Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe, going down 24-22, 13-21, 19-21.
The mixed doubles Indian pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa also lost 11-21, 16-21 to Japanese combo of Yuki Kaneko and Mayu Matsumoto.
At a glance (singles only)
PV Sindhu bt Yip Pui Yin 21-16, 21-14
HS Prannoy lost to Sony Dwi Kuncoro 18-21, 14-21
Parupalli Kashyap lost to Kanta Tsuneyama 18-21, 21-18, 19-21