Indian singles stars PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, and Kiran George have made their way into the Round of 16 of the ongoing 2023 Arctic Open Super 500 in Finland.
On the opening day of the competition, Sindhu progressed to the next stage after beating former world champion Nozomi Okuhara 21-13, 21-6 in the women’s singles Round of 32.
The encounter between the two rivals took a total of 33 minutes where the Indian got the better of her Japanese opponent on Tuesday after having lost to her in the Round of 32 at the BWF World Championships in August.
In the main draw of the men’s singles event, Kiran took three games to beat France’s Toma Junior Popov and progress into the Round of 16 on Wednesday, while Srikanth advanced after his German opponent Mx Wiesskirchen retired mid-way into the match.
Aakarshi Kashyap also moved into the Round of 16 after beating her opponent from Belgium, Lianne Tan with a scoreline of 22-20, 21-18.
Having qualified for the main draw, Malvika Bansod, however, lost 10-21, 5-21 to Thailand’s Supanida Katethong in the opening round of the women’s singles event on Tuesday.
Mithun Manjunath too lost his encounter 19-21, 14-21 to China’s Weng Hong Yang to exit in the opening round of the main draw.
In the women’s doubles event, the Indian pairing of Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponappa made a winning start with a 22-20, 21-19 win over Japan’s Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto and will compete in the Round of 16 on Thursday against the French pair of Margot Lambert and Anne Trai.
Sindhu will be up against Wen Chi Hsu of Chinese Taipei, who the Indian recently beat in straight games at the Asian Games. Kashyap, on the other hand, will have a tough test against the fifth seed Wang Zhi Yi of China.
In the men’s singles event, George will be up against fourth seed Lu Guang Zu from China while Srikanth will face Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan in the pre-quarterfinals.
Amid the Indians coming through the qualifiers, the mixed doubles pair of Sai Praneeth K and Crasto beat the Danish pair of Anders Sondegaard and Iben Bergstein with a scoreline of 26-24, 21-28 on Tuesday.
But on Wednesday, they crashed out in the opening round of the main draw after losing 14-21, 18-21 to the Japanese duo of Hidori Midorikawa and Natsu Saito.
Later, the women’s doubles pairing of Rutaparna and Swetaparna Panda lost 9-21, 10-21 to China’s Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning in the Round of 32.
On Tuesday, Harshit Aggarwal lost 19-21, 12-21 to local opponent Joakim Oldorff in the qualifiers and failed to enter the main draw of the men’s singles event.
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