China Open | Kidambi Srikanth, PV Sindhu qualify for quarter-finals

09/20/2018

Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu have won their respective singles matches in the ongoing China Open badminton tournament and advanced to the quarter-final round. Meanwhile, in men's doubles and mixed doubles category, India lost all their matches in the second round of the tournament.

Kidambi Srikanth defeated Suppanyu Avihingsanon 21-12, 15-21, 24-22 in the second round of the men's singles category. The Indian started off on a positive note having a lead of 11-7 and then carried on with his good run in the game and eventually won it 21-12. The Thai shuttler then showed his effective skills in the second game of the Round 2 match.

hough Srikanth had a good start in the second game as well, Suppanyu did well to lead at the mid-game break 11-7. The Indian failed to level score from then and lost the game 15-21. The decider was an intriguing one as well as both the shuttlers kept their best for the last. Halfway in the game, Srikanth led by four points but his opponent managed to level at 12-12 before taking the lead only to be overtaken by Srikanth.

He had three match points at one stage but Suppanyu leveled again and made it 20-20. This went on all down to the wire before Srikanth eventually won the game 24-22. Srikanth would now meet Japan's Kento Momota in the quarter-final match.

In women's singles, PV Sindhu also won her match 21-23, 21-13, 21-18 against Busanan Ongbamrungphan. After losing a competitive first game, Sindhu came back strongly in the next two to qualify for the quarters. She dominated the second game from the very beginning as she led 11-6 at the mid-game break. She managed to keep the lead till the very end and eventually won the game by a good margin of 21-13.

In the closely-fought third game, third-seeded Sindhu was trailing by 2-0 in the beginning but then her good court coverage and attacking skills helped her fight back. She had a two-point lead midway and eventually finished well by taking the game 21-18. Sindhu would now face Chen Yufei of China in the next round.

The Indian doubles pairs were knocked out off the competition. In the mixed doubles category, Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy lost 14-21, 11-21 to China's Siwei Zheng and Huang Yaqiong in the round of 16. The result in the other mixed doubles match was the same as well. Sikki Reddy and Pranav Jerry Chopra went down 16-21 10-21 to the sixth-seeded pair of Christinna Pedersen and Mathias Christiansen from Denmark.

In the men’s doubles, Mannu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy were outplayed by Chen Hung Ling and Wang Chi-Lin 9-21 10-21.