India’s perfect start to the World Championships in Glasgow in the men’s and women’s singles continued as all three players in action recorded wins on day two of the event. PV Sindhu, Ajay Jayaram and B Sai Praneeth won their respective matches in straight games.
Fourth seed Sindhu, who had received a bye in the first round, was up against Korea’s Hyo Min Kim. The world no. 42 did not look like troubling the Indian as she wrapped a 21-16 21-14 win to ease into the third round. Sindhu trailed for just one point in the entire duration of the match and was not tested by the tall Korean, who could have proved to be a tricky opponent. Sindhu will face the winner of Evgeniya Kosetskaya and 13th seed Ngan Yi Cheung.
Singapore Open champion Sai Praneeth opened his campaign with a straight-game win over Hong Kong’s Wei Nan to reach the second round The 15th seeded Indian fought back from 5-9 and 14-16 in the opening game and then erased a deficit of 10-13 and 15-17 in the second game to eventually see off Wei Nan 21-18 21-17 in a 48-minute match.
The 25-year-old from Hyderabad has a tough fixture next as he will next take on Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in the second round. The Indonesian is the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic and World Junior Championships boys’ singles bronze medallist.
It was also a comfortable win for world No. 17 Ajay too, as he defeated Austrian Luka Wraber 21-14 21-12 in just 31 minutes. Just like Sindhu earlier, Ajay barely trailed during the match.
Doubles mixed bag
India top mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy, seeded 15th, who had won the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold title, defeated Indo-Malaysian combo of Prajakta Sawant and Yogendran Khrishnan 21-12 21-19.
However, disappointment was at store for India in the other mixed doubles matches as B Sumeeth Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa, and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Maneesha K suffered contrasting losses to bow out of the event.
Sumeeth and Ashwini, who had reached the finals of Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold in January, went down fighting 17-21 21-18 5-21 to 13th seeded Chinese pair of Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping, while Satwiksairaj and Maneesha lost 20-22 18-21 to 14th seeded Denmark duo of Mathias Christiansen and Sara Thygesen.
In the men’s doubles, Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty also suffered a first round exit.
In the women’s doubles, Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy registered a comfortable win in their first round but a tough challenge against second seeds Juhl and Pedersen from Denmark awaits them.
In women’s singles, National champion Rituparna Das also won the opening round match late on day one after her opponent Finland’s Airi Mikkela retired after lagging 0-2 in the first game.
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