PV Sindhu, HS Prannoy ease into Indonesian Open 2nd round
After suffering two successive losses to Gregoria Mariska Tunjung, PV Sindhu finally overcame her Indonesian rival, that too in her backyard, Jakarta’s famous Istora Senayan badminton arena that was rooting for her on Tuesday.
India’s twin Olympic medallist lost to the world No.9 in the Spain Masters final in April and in the Malaysia Masters semifinals last month. This time on the opening day of the $1.25 million Indonesia Open Super 1000 tournament, she came out on top, winning 21-19, 21-15 in 38 minutes to silence the partisan crowd.
It was the eighth win in 10 meetings against Gregoria for Sindhu, who has dropped to world No.14 in a subdued season so far.
The challenge for Sindhu gets tougher as she will face old rival Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei in the second round. The third seed has an 18-5 win-loss record against Sindhu, who last beat her on way to winning the title at the 2019 World Championships. The world No.3 has won their last eight meetings.
Seventh seeded HS Prannoy too won in straight games Tuesday. He beat Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto 21-16, 21-14 in 50 minutes. The seventh seed – Prannoy won the Malaysia Masters last month – had to dig deep in the first game, but the second was fairly easy for India’s top ranked men’s singles player.
Having beaten Nishimoto for a second time in four meetings, India’s world No.9 will next face Hong Kong’s Angus Ng Ka Long. Their head-to-head is locked at 5-all.
In doubles, seventh seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty advanced to the Round of 16 after the Popov brothers of France, Christo and Toma Junior, retired while the Indian pair led its opening tie 21-12, 11-7. Christo had suffered a bad fall in his singles defeat against Chinese Taipei’s fifth seed Chou Tien Chen earlier in the day. Christo had lost the final game of that contest 1-21, which suggested he had struggled. He didn’t look in great shape in the doubles and chose to retire.
However, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost 21-12, 6-21, 20-22 to Malaysian eighth seeds Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi. Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also lost their women’s doubles opener, losing 22-20, 12-21, 16-21 to Japan’s Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi.
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