All England Badminton Championship | Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth, B Sai Praneeth qualify for Round 2; PV Sindhu bows out

Srikanth also registered a straight games victory by beating Brice Leverdez of France 21-13, 21-11 in 30 minutes. It was all so easy for the Indian to march ahead in the men’s singles category with this dominating performance against the Frenchman as he had an upper edge against his opponent from the beginning of the match. Asian Games gold medallist Jonatan Christie of Indonesia will be the next opponent for Srikanth in the championship. While in another men’s singles match, India’s Sai Praneeth defeated compatriot HS Prannoy in straight games. However, both the games were keenly-fought and even Prannoy was leading at the mid-game break in the first one by 11-9 points. Praneeth, on the other hand, held his nerves taking both the games 21-19, 21-19 to make into the second round. 

Meanwhile, the first day in Birmingham was not a great one for another star shuttler PV Sindhu as she went down to Sung Ji Hyun 21-16, 20-22, 21-18 in 81 minutes. Sindhu had to bow out of the championship after the poor show in her first match against the Korean. After the first game was taken away by Sung, Sindhu made a good effort in the second one to come back into the match by winning it by 22-20. However, she couldn’t put up a good show in the decider and lost it by 18-21 points to end her campaign on the very first day. 

In the doubles category, India’s women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy were defeated by seventh seeds Shiho Tanaka and Koharu Yonemoto 21-16, 26-28, 16-21 in 77 minutes while Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy lost their first-round match against Chinese pair Ou Xuanyi and Ren Xiangyu by 19-21, 21-16, 14-21. The duo of Jakkampudi Meghana and S Ram Poorvisha were also defeated in the first round of the competition as the Indian women’s doubles pair lost to Russia’s Ekaterina Bolotova and Alina Davletova by 21-18, 12-21, 12-21 points.