It was a good day for Indian badminton as top players PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, and Lakshya Sen progressed to the second round of the Malaysia Masters in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
Sindhu had to dig deep to beat Denmark’s Line Christophersen while Prannoy and Lakshya knocked out seeded players Chou Tien Chou and Loh Kean Yew respectively.
The Super 500 is the first of five straight weeks of top-flight tournaments on the BWF Tour and only India’s singles players are in action at the event which is among the first in the Olympic qualification cycle.
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Sindhu, seeded sixth, had to battle for one hour and two minutes to get past the lower ranked Dane who she has beaten four time before. The Indian prevailed 21-13, 17-21, 21-18 will next play Japan’s Aya Ohori for a place in the quarterfinal.
Prannoy also had a fight on his hands and held his nerves after going a game down to upset sixth seed Chou 16-21, 21-14, 21-13. He had lost to the Chinese Taipei player last week at the Sudirman Cup and had to fight back for his win. He will next play All England Open champion Li Shi Feng of China.
Lakshya too had to come through a three-game match but was easily the better player, beating seventh seed Loh Kean Yew 21-10, 16-21, 21-9. He next faces Ng Ka Long Angus of Hong Kong.
Earlier, Kidambi Srikanth defeated Toma Junior Popov of France 21-12, 21-16. He will have a challenge in the next round, taking on eighth seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn.
However, it was curtains for Aakarshi Kashyap as well as qualifiers Ashmita Chaliha and Malvika Bansod in the women’s singles competition as they suffered straight-game defeats to seeded players in the opening round.
Aakarshi went down to world No 1 Akane Yamaguchi 17-21, 12-21, while Ashmita lost 17-21, 7-21 against fourth seed Yue Han and Malvika was beaten by second seed Zhi Yi Wang 11-21, 13-21.
