PV Sindhu defeats Beiwen Zhang to enter second round of French Open

The French Open Super 750 tournament started in Paris yesterday and the Indian campaign was off to a sweet start after PV Sindhu managed to put behind her last week’s first round exit at the hands of Bewei Zhang in the first round of  the Denmark Open and managed to defeat the same opponent in straight games of 21-17, 21-8 in 34 minutes.

The first game was a tough one with both the players staying close to each other’s score up until the scoreline read 16-16, thereafter the scores started diverging as Sindhu started putting pressure and Zhang yielded leading to Sindhu taking the game 21-17.

The second game was a one sided affair in which Sindhu scored seven consecutive points to take her score from three to ten. The match resumed in the second half of the set with Sindhu leading at 11-4. Thereafter Zhang only managed four more points whereas Sindhu bagged ten and sealed the game and the match in her favour. Sindhu also sounded pleased after defeating a hard player like Zhang.

"I am happy to beat a difficult player like Zhang. Last week at the Denmark Open I made a lot of mistakes. Today I was determined to give my 100% but still I made mistakes in the first game. But towards the end of the game I was cautious and played well. I was a tough first game but the second was a bit easy," Sindhu said after the match. 

Apart from Sindhu other players for India to look out for would be Saina Nehwal in women’s singles and KIdambi Srikanth in men’s singles who would be taking court today.

"I am quite focused to do well in this tournament. I was not thinking too much about my next opponent as all the players are more or less at the same level in these type of tournaments," Sindhu said.