India’s Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth on Thursday entered the quarter-finals of the Malaysia Masters with contrasting wins in their second-round matches.
Saina, seeded seventh, took 39 minutes to tame Hong Kong’s Pui Yin Yip 21-14, 21-16 in her second-round encounter. Srikanth, also seeded seventh, needed an hour and four minutes to get past Yip’s compatriot Wong Wing Ki Vincent 23-21, 8-21, 21-18.
Saina will play second seed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan, while Srikanth will take on fourth seed Son Wan Ho of South Korea in the last-eight stage of the Super 500-level tournament on Friday.
Saina holds an 8-4 overall head-to-head record against Okuhara, which includes back-to-back wins over the current world no 2 at last year’s Denmark Open and French Open.
If Saina manages to get past Okuhara again, the world No 9 might run into fourth seed Carolina Marin, who is placed in her half of the draw.
Srikanth narrowly trails Son 4-5 in their head-to-head and Friday’s quarter-final should be an exciting one.
In women’s doubles, the Indian pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost to Indonesia’s Ni Ketut Mahadewi Istarani and Rizki Amelia Pradipta 18-21, 17-21 in the second round.
P Kashyap will take on sixth seed Anthony Ginting of Indonesia later in the day.
With inputs from PTI
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