The Indian badminton women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto, on Wednesday, advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the 2024 Indonesia Open Super 1000 as PV Sindhu suffered a first round exit in women’s singles.
The 2024 Paris Olympics-bound Ponnappa and Crasto registered a convincing 21-15, 21-15 victory over Canada’s Jackie Dent and Crystal Lai in just 34 minutes.
The Indian pair did not have the best of starts in the contest as they trailed 3-6 before nudging ahead 8-7 in the first game. The Canadians, however, maintained their composure to open up an 11-10 lead at the mid-game interval.
Crasto and Ponnappa soon made amends post the break as they won 11 of the next 14 points to take the opening game 21-15.
The second game began in a similar fashion as Dent and Lai made it difficult for their opponents early on, but the world No 20 pair managed to stay ahead 11-9 this time around.
Ponnappa and Crasto ensured that they never let the advantage slip and once again dominated the latter half of the game to book their spot in the Round of 16 with a straight games victory.
PV Sindhu loses
Earlier in the day, double Olympic medallist Sindhu bowed out of competition in the opening round following a shock 15-21, 21-15, 14-21 loss to Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Wen-Chi in a battle which lasted 70 minutes.
The former world champion looked far from her best as the world No 26 registered her first victory over the Indian in four meetings.
Sindhu committed multiple errors early on in the match which saw her trail by a big margin of 3-11 at the first mid-game interval. She tidied up post the break, but the gap was a bit too much to bridge as Hsu took the opening game 21-15 without breaking a sweat.
The world No 12, however, carried forward the new-found momentum from the opening game into the second game as she opened up a slender 11-10 lead after a few good rallies. She held on to the advantage to force a decider, winning the second game 21-15.
Sindhu did well to keep in touch with the Chinese Taipei shuttler in the decider, though she trailed 10-11 before then change of ends. However, things soon fell apart as errors overflowed from her racquet and Hsu had 7 match points without the blink of an eye.
Though Sindhu saved one of those seven, Hsu walked off as the winner.
Meanwhile, the women’s doubles pair of Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda faced a 12-21, 9-21 straight games loss to South Korea’s sixth seeds Kim So Yeong and Kong Hee Yong in just 36 minutes.
Later in the day, Aakarshi Kashyap went down 18-21, 6-21 to Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand in her women’s singles opening round clash.
Kashyap led 18-16 in the first game, but conceded five points in a row to lose it before Intanon raced away in the second game, leaving no room for error.
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