Olympic bronze medallist Nehwal beats Russia’s Natalia Perminova 21-11, 21-9
India’s best bet at the World Badminton Championships, Saina Nehwal proceeded to the women’s singles third round after notching up an easy straight games win at the Ballerup Super Arena here on Tuesday.
After receiving a first round bye, the seventh-seeded Indian needed only 31 minutes to beat Russian Natalia Perminova 21-11, 21-9 in the second round to take an unbeaten 2-0 record in career meetings.
The Olympic bronze medallist totally dominated the first game and then won nine consecutive points at the start of the second to take a massive 10-1 lead. It was too much to ask for the World No. 44 to overcome the deficit and the Hyderabadi kept winning points to enter the pre-quarters.
Saina will next take on the winner of the match between Japan’s 13th seed Sayaka Takahashi and Bulgaria’s Petya Nedelcheva.
Meanwhile, Mumbai’s Ajay Jayaram, who is making a comeback to the circuit for the first time since January, advanced to the men’s singles second round as Japanese fourth seed Kenichi Tago had pulled out before the event had started.
Jayaram will next face Thai Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk in his first competitive match in seven months.
later, German sixth seeds Michael Fuchs and Birgit Michels made short work of Kerala mixed doubles combine Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan 21-14, 21-11 in only 33 minutes. Elsewhere, Thai pair Puttita Supajirakul and Sapsiree Taerattanachai got a walkover as Indians Prajakta Sawant and Arathi Sara Sunil pulled out of the tourney.
India’s top mixed doubles combine Ashwini Ponnappa and Tarun Kona also had to face a first round exit but the pairs of Akshay Dewalkar-Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Arun Vishnu-Aparna Balan notched up wins in their respective doubles categories.
Earlier, Tarun and Ashwini had lost the first game 16-21 to Danish World No.16 pair Anders Kristiansen and Julie Houmann. The World No.39 Indian combine gave a tough fight in the second game but eventually went down 25-27 in a tight match which lasted 46 minutes.
However, in some good news for Ashwini, she, along with her women’s doubles partner Jwala Gutta, got a walkover in their opener to enter as England’s Heather Olver and Kate Robertshaw withdrew from the tournament. They have a tough second round ahead when they take on Chinese fifth seeds Qing Tian and Yunlei Zhao, who have an unbeaten 6-0 record against Jwala and Ashwini.
later, Dewalkar and Chopra came out on top in a topsy-turvy men’s doubles opener to proceed to the second round. It was a neck-and-neck encounter in the first game against Hong Kong pair Yun lung Chan and Chun Hei lee but Dewalkar and Chopra did well to stick it out and take home the first game 21-19.
The second game was also pretty close at the start but as it progressed, the World No. 43 combine from Hong Kong kept extending their lead to win it 21-16 and level the match. Yun and Chun maintained most of the lead till 16-14 in the decider but the World No. 39 Indians came out with a brilliant spurt to scalp the next six points and have four matchpoints at hand. However, Dewalkar and Chopra wasted all four of them and the match was level once more at 20-all. The Indian pair managed to keep their nerves and easily took the next two points to win the 54-minute encounter.
Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan had a rather easy outing as they won their mixed doubles opener against Brazilians Hugo Arthuso and Fabiana Silva 21-12, 21-14 in only 23 minutes.