India Open | Saina, Sindhu make it to second round as Prannoy crashes out in first round
The duo of Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu, who recently faced each other in the Indonesian Masters, where the former prevailed, advanced to the second round at the Indian Open. HS Prannoy, who was forced to play with foot corns, handed over the match to Shreyansh Jaiswal with a margin of 21-4, 21-6.
Saina Nehwal, looked determined to bounce back from her loss to world number one Tzu Ying, as she advanced to the second round of the India Open beating Sofie Holmboe Dahl by a score of 21-15, 21-9. Nehwal was relentless in her pursuit for a victory as she claimed a total of 42 points out of 66, winning 42 rallies along the way. Dahl, ranked 55, battled hard against the Indian but after 41 minutes, Nehwal emerged victorious. Saina will face Denmark's Line Hjmark Kjaersfeldt in the second round.
World number 3, PV Sindhu, who missed out on the Indonesian Masters final after being knocked out by Nehwal, eased her way to a comfortable victory against Natalia Koch Rode of Denmark. This was the first meeting of the duo, during which Sindhu won both games by a final score of 21-10, 21-13. Sindhu collected a total of 42 points as compared to Rode’s 23 rallies won. Sindhu is in line to face Bulgaria's Linda Zetchiri in the next round of the tournament.
An uncomfortable looking HS Prannoy lost in the opening round after developing foot corns against compatriot Shreyansh Jaiswal and handed over the match to his younger colleague 4-21, 6-21. On the other hand, Kidambi Srikanth had to fight it out against Lee Cheung Yiu and overcame his opponent by a scoreline of 21-17, 21-18. It was a close match which went on for a period of 40 minutes. Among other Indians, B Sai Praneeth had to dig deep to see off 2010 Commonwealth Games silver medallist Rajiv Ouseph 21-11, 17-21, 21-17.
In the Women's doubles category, Aparna Balan and Sruthi K.P comfortably beat the American duo of Ariel and Sydney Lee by a scoreline of 21-13, 21-2. However, Greysia Poli and Apriyani Rahayu of Indonesia ran riot against the Indian pair of Harika Veludurthi and Karishma Wadkar. Among the mixed doubles, the duo of Malaysian Yogendran Khrishnan and Indian Prajakta Sawant beat Vighnesh Devlekar and Harika Veludurthi in a one-sided encounter by a scoreline of 21-17, 21-10.