Indian shuttlers enjoy successful openings at Worlds across singles, doubles & mixed doubles
Indian shuttlers enjoyed a comfortable outing on the opening day of the Badminton World Championship on Monday with HS Prannoy and Sameer Verma sailing into the second round of the men's singles while the doubles shuttlers also marched to the next round with ease.
Prannoy, seeded 11th in the tournament, hardly broke into a sweat in cruising past unseeded New Zealander Abhinav Manota in straight games 21-12, 21-11 in a match that lasted 28 minutes. He will next take on Brazilian Ygor Coelho in the second round.
Sameer also advanced comfortably to the next round after thrashing France's lucas Corvee 21-13, 21-10 in a 39-minute affair.
There was good news from the doubles shuttlers too as the men's duo of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy and the mixed doubles pairs of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa, and Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy also advanced to the second round.
While Manu and Sumeeth defeated Bulgarian pair Daniel Nikolov and Ivan Rusev 21-13, 21-18 in the 26-minute affair, the mixed doubles combo of Pranaav and Sikki comfortably went past the Czech Republic duo of Jakub Bitman and Alzbeta Basova 21-17, 21-15 in a 30-minute tie.
later in the day, Satwik and Ashwini floored Denmark's Niclas Nohr and Sara Thygesen 21-9, 22-20 in a tie that lasted 36 minutes.
In another mixed doubles tie, Saurabh Sharma and Anoushka Parikh beat Nigerians Enejoh Abah and Peace Orji 21-13, 21-12 comprehensively in 26 minutes while Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg defeated Canada's Toby NG and Rachel Honderich 21-19, 21-6 in 28 minutes.
However, it was curtains for the women's doubles pair of Sanyogita Ghorpade and Prajakta Sawant, who lost their opening round clash 20-22, 14-21 to Turkey's Bengisu Ercetin and Nazlican Inci in 34 minutes.
Among others, top seed and defending champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark enjoyed a comfortable 21-8, 21-7 win over Portugal's Duarte Anjo, while third seed and reigning All England Champion Shi Yuqi of China beat Adam Mendrek of the Czech Republic 21-13, 21-11 to proceed to the second round.
Axelsen opens title defence World champion Viktor Axelsen has begun his title defence with a dominating 21-8, 21-7 win over Duarte Anjo on the first day of the badminton world championships.
Axelsen controlled the match throughout Monday, taking an early lead in both games before winning 12 of the last 13 points to advance.
Despite being hampered by injuries early in the season, Axelsen won the European Championship in April and appears to be in the kind of form that last year helped him become the first European in 20 years to win the world title.
Third-seeded Shi Yuqi beat Adam Mendrek of Czech Republic 21-13, 21-11 in his opening match. Shi, who won the All England earlier this year, has the highest seeding of any of the Chinese men.
Five-time champion lin Dan, seeded 9th, opened with a 21-14, 21-14 win over Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands. Caljouw leveled at 9-9 in the second game before lin pulled away behind a series of precision smashes.
All of the seeded players in women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles received first-round byes.