Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap moved into the quarter-finals while other Indians in the fray made second round exits in the Yonex Sunrise India Open here on Thursday.
While Saina had an easy game (21-15, 21-12) against Thailand’s Natcha Saengchote in women’s singles second round, Kashyap toiled hard to beat compatriot RMV Guru Sai Dutt 21-15, 16-21, 21-11.
During the match between Saina and Saengchote, the Indian ace got into the groove after the initial period as the Thai took 5-2 lead. Saina equalized soon after but the the battle continued till 15 points. The london Olympics bronze medallist then got into her own and played with a lot of aggression to take the remaining six points quickly to take the first game.
In the second game, Saina moved well inside the court and never allowed Saengchote to settle down. The Hyderabadi girl raced to 15-4 and that ensured that she won it easy.However, a litmus test awaits Saina as she takes on world number two Yihan Wang next. Saina had lost to Yihan during the Olympics 2012 semi-final.“Initially I took some time to understand her style of play because I was not only playing against her for the first time, I had also never seen her play. My movement was good today and I think these kinds of matches help before you get to play more tougher opponents as the tournament progresses,” she told reporters.
Talking about her next match against Yihan, who defeated Shizuka Uchida 21-8, 13-21, 21-12, Saina said, “It’s not easy to play the Chinese. I need to be more confident and fast.”Also moving into the third round were world number one li Xuerui and world number three Shixian Wang. The Chinese Olympics champion recovered a first game loss to win 19-21, 21-17, 21-16 against Thailand’s Nichaon Jindapon while Shixian defeated Sayaka Takahashi 21-17, 20-22, 21-12.
In the match between both Gopichand Academy products, Kashyap and Dutt, the senior pro Kashyap who had on Wednesday defeated sixth seed Zhengming Wang, took a 7-4 lead and later held onto it to win the first game. In the second Dutt got the better of Kashyap by playing well during rallies and slowed down the pace of his opponent’s game to ensure that rubber went into a tie-breaker game.
In the final game, Dutt had a four-point lead, at 7-4, but allowed Kashyap to stage a comeback by making a lot of unforced errors.“After winning the first game I lost my rhythm in the second. I started attacking too much and lost energy. Guru’s net and defence play is good. We spar with each other while training, so we know each other’s game well. That is why it is always difficult for me to beat him. He has beaten me twice so it was good to beat him,” Kashyap said.
The 23rd ranked Kashyap next faces world number one lee Chong Wei, who packed off Sourabh Verma 21-9, 21-6 in 23 minutes.Meanwhile, Indonesian Aprilla Yuswandari took only 29 minutes to beat former women’s singles national champion Trupti Murgunde 21-13, 21-12 in the second round.India’s challenge in doubles competition came to an end when Chinese fifth seeds and Olympics gold medallist pair Qing Tian and Yunlei Zhao got past India’s Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa 21-13, 21-19 in 37 minutes.
“We were slow to start with and I made a lot of errors to concede the first game. In the second game we played really well, it was 19-20 but they sealed the match. They are the Olympics champion and to play against them this way makes us feel that we are not that far,” Jwala told The Pioneer.
Sindhu slips to 10th
Following her first round loss to Shixian Wang in the ongoing $250000 India Open, PV Sindhu has lost her ninth place rank to Thai girl Porntip Buranaprasertsuk in the latest world ranking released on Thursday.