PV Sindhu continued her impressive run at the ongoing Swiss Open Super 300 badminton tournament in Basel as he advanced to the quarterfinals of the women’s singles event on Thursday. The Indian shuttler secured a comfortable 21-13 21-14 win over her opponent Iris Wang. She will face Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan in the next round.
Meanwhile, Ajay Jayaram also notched up a hard-fought win against third seeded Dane Rasmus Gemke in their respective men’s singles second round matches. The match went into three games, with the Indian winning the first and the last (21-18 17-21 21-13). Jayaram will be up against another Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn, seeded eighth, in the last-eight stage.
In other events involving Indian shuttlers at the ongoing competition, former world no 1 Kidmabi Srikanth notched up a 21-10 14-21 21-14 victory over world no 50 Thomas Rouxel of France. Srikanth, who had won the title in 2015, will face sixth seeded Thai Kantaphon Wangcharoen in the next round.
Sai Praneeth also secured a convincing 21-12, 21-17 win against Spain’s Pablo Abian to secure a quarterfinals berth.
Indian mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa also progressed to the quarterfinals, continuing their recent good run in international badminton.
Satwik and Ashwini, who reached the semifinals at Toyota Thailand Open Super 1000 in January, defeated the Indonesian combination of Rinov Rivaldy and Pitha Haningtyas Mentari 21-18 21-16 in a mixed doubles second-round match.
However, Sourabh Verma lost 17-21 14-21 to eighth seeded Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn to crash out of the men’s singles event.Earlier, two-time former champion Saina Nehwal also bowed out of the tournament after a hard-fought first-round loss in the women’s singles opening round on Wednesday night. The London Olympic bronze-medallist battled for 58 minutes before going down 16-21 21-17 21-23 to Phittayaporn Chaiwan of Thailand.
Saina’s husband and fellow shuttler Parupalli Kashyap too went down 15-21 10-21 to Spain’s Pablo Abian, while young Lakshya Sen lost 16-21 12-21 to Victor Svendsen in the men’s singles first round. Men’s doubles pair of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost 16-21 18-21 to seventh seeds Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov of Russia.
– with PTI inputs
