P V Sindhu, Saina Nehwal advances to second round at BWF World Championships

Basel (Switzerland): Two-time silver medallist P V Sindhu produced a commanding performance in her opening match while former bronze medallist Saina Nehwal also advanced at the BWF World Championships here on Wednesday.

Saina, returning from an injury, downed Dutch player Soraya De Visch Ejibergen 21-10 21-11 in the second round. However, doubles specialist Ashwini Ponnappa who won bronze in the 2011 World Championships with Jwala Gutta lost to China’s seventh-seeded Du Yue and Li Yin 22-20 21-16.

Earlier, Sindhu looked in good touch as she controlled the rallies and outsmarted Pai Yu Po 21-14 21-14 in a 43-minute contest. The fifth seeded Indian, who received a bye in the opening round, is likely to face USA’s Beiwen Zhang, seeded ninth, in the pre-quarterfinals. Sindhu, an Olympic silver medallist, had lost to Zhang at the India Open finals last year. In the first game, Sindhu moved ahead from 5-5 to slowly create a gap and entered the interval with a 11-7 lead.

After the break, Sindhu continued to surge and grabbed six game points when Pai made an error in judgement at the backline. The Indian sealed it with a cross court return.

Sindhu zoomed to a 6-1 lead in the



second game before Pai started constructing the rallies and narrowed the deficit to 5-7. Sindhu’s unforced errors also made life easy for the Taiwanese girl, who showed some great skills and managed to enter the interval with a 11-10 lead. The Indian, however, changed gears after the break, dishing out some good-looking strokes to eventually enter match point at 20-14 when her rival missed a shuttle at the backline. She sealed the match next with a precise on-the-line return.

Meanwhile, it was also curtains for Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy with the Chinese pair of Hang Cheng Kai and Zhou Hao Dong outclassing them 21-16 21-19. J Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram went down 8-21 18-21 to eighth seeds Shiho Tanaka and Koharu Yonemoto in the women’s doubles. Results: Women’s singles: PV Sindhu bt Pai Yu Po (Taipei) 21-14 21-15; Saina Nehwal bt Soraya De Visch Ejibergen (Netherlands) 21-10 21-11

Men’s doubles: Hang Cheng Kai & Zhou Hao Dong (China) bt Manu Attri & B Sumeeth Reddy 21-16 21-19; Women’s doubles: Du Yue & Li Yin Hui (China) bt Ashwini Ponnappa & N Sikki Reddy 22-20 21-16; Shiho Tanaka & Koharu Yonemoto (Japan) bt J Meghana & Poorvisha S Ram 21-8 21-18.