India’s Kidambi Srikanth and Saina Nehwal sailed into the second and third rounds of the badminton world championships respectively, while Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon survived a major scare in Nanjing, China, on Tuesday.
Srikanth needed 37 minutes to get past junior world No 6 Nhat Nguyen from Ireland 21-15, 21-16 to set up a second-round clash against Spain’s Pablo Abian. Nehwal, who got a bye in the first round, also made light work of Turkey’s Aliye Demirbag, beating her 21-17, 21-8 to set up a mouth-watering third-round clash against 2013 champion Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand.
Intanon, one of the favourites in Nanjing, however looked set to go out in the second round to the unseeded Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark, before recovering her poise and winning in three games.
A lacklustre Ratchanok went down 21-16 in the first game and was trailing for much of the second, losing 19-16 at one stage. The 23-year-old appeared troubled by a right ankle or foot injury and called for her trainer as she stared defeat in the face.
But the former world No 1 stormed back to squeeze through the second game 22-20 and then raced away in the decider 21-10 after a nervy 76 minutes of action.
World No 1 and top seed Tai Tzu Ying started her campaign with a comfortable 21-10, 21-16 win against Wendy Chen of Australia in just 30 minutes.
In the doubles, India’s Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy fought back from a game down against the 15th seeds Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Herttrich of Germany to win 10-21, 21-17, 21-18 in the second round. Ashwini and Satwik will now take on seventh seeds Soon Huat Goh and Shevon Jemie Lai of Malaysia in the third round.
However, other Indian doubles pairs N Sikki Reddy / Pranaav Jerry Chopra, Meghana Jakkampudi / Poorvisha S Ram, Tarun Kona / Saurabh Sharma, MR Arjun / Shlok Ramchandran, and Rohan Kapoor / Kuhoo Garg, all crashed out on Tuesday.
UPDATE:
In a rematch of the men’s doubles final at the Commonwealth Games, India’s Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty reversed the defeat against the English duo of Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge by winning a gripping first round encounter. The young Indian pair held their nerves against the CWG champs and Rio 2016 bronze medallists to triumph 21-19, 12-21, 21-19 in 81 minutes.
Meanwhile, Meanwhile, Ashwini Ponappa was involved in another come-from-behind win on the day. After coming back from a game down earlier in the day alongside Satwik, she did the same with her women’s doubles partner Sikki Reddy, defeating Taiwan’s Chiang and Hung to win 19-21, 21-10, 21-17 in 51 minutes.
With inputs from AFP
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