India’s singles stars did not need to break much sweat as they sailed into the quarterfinals of the Indonesia Masters BWF World Tour Super 500 badminton tournament in Jakarta with straight games win in their respective second round matches in Jakarta on Thursday.
Eighth seed Saina Nehwal was on the court for the longest period, needing 43 minutes to see of local girl Fitriani Fitriani 21-17, 21-15 in the second round.
Nehwal trailed just four times in the entire match, that too only in the initial stages of both the games, and finished off the match with five straight points to set up a last eight clash against Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong.
Earlier in the day, PV Sindhu needed just 37 minutes to beat Gregoria Mariska Tungjung and Kidambi Srikanth took just 30 minutes to pack off Kenta Nishimoto.
Sindhu looked a little out of sorts in the opening game as she allowed the Indonesian to fight back from 6-3 and then 19-15 to earn a game point. To her credit, the second seeded Indian kept her cool under pressure to save the game point and then pocketed the game on the second opportunity.
There were rarely any long rallies in the opening game and Tungjung tried to play with a flatter trajectory to catch Sindhu off guard. While the plan worked in the opening game, Sindhu was completely dominant in the second as she opened up a 9-2 lead and controlled the proceedings brilliantly thereafter to win 23-21, 21-7 in just 37 minutes.
On the adjacent court, Srikanth needed seven minutes less to pack off Kenta Nishimoto 21-14, 21-9.
The eighth seed, who had needed just 29 minutes to beat Chong Wei Feng in the opening round, was similarly dominating as he picked nine of the 10 points from 9-8 in the opening game and though Nishimoto managed to string a series of three consecutive points at the later stage, it was all in a lost cause.
Srikanth began the second game with six consecutive points and when he managed to do it again when leading 12-8 soon after the mid-game interval, the result was never in doubt.
In the quarterfinals, Sindhu will play Carolina Marin while Srikanth faces Asian Games gold medallist Jonatan Christie, who defeated second seed Shi Yuqi 22-20, 21-6.
India’s doubles challenge, however, came to an end after national champions Manu Atri and B Sumeeth Reddy went down 21-14 17-21 21-10 against fifth seed Danish combination of Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen.
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