India’s No. 1, PV Sindhu, made a blazing start to her challenge at the All England Open Badminton Championships by notching up an easy victory in the first round at Birmingham on Wednesday. The sixth seed needed just 29 minutes to see off the 33rd-ranked Mette Poulsen, 21-10, 21-11.
The Rio Olympic silver medallist lost in the first round last year and is looking to progress deeper this time.
In the men’s singles, HS Prannoy was the only one to join Sindhu in Round 2. The World No. 21 showed superb resilience to come back from a game down and edge the 24th-ranked Qiao Bin, 17-21, 22-20, 21-19 in a marathon contest that lasted 1 hour 22 minutes.
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The Swiss Open champion was two points away from defeat as he trailed 16-19 in the decider, however, he won five points in a row to take the win.
Jayaram, doubles pairs bow out
Curtains came down on the campaign of India’s No. 1 men’s singles player Ajay Jayaram. The World No. 19 went down to the 27th-ranked Huang Yuxiang of China, 19-21, 13-21.
Indian shuttlers also had to bite the dust in doubles earlier in the day. In men’s doubles, the top Indian pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy grabbed the middle game but failed to cross the finish line against the all-English combine of Peter Briggs and Tom Wolfenden. Attri and Reddy succumbed to a 19-21, 21-10, 18-21 defeat in 47 minutes.
It was the same fate for the women’s doubles pair of Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram. The World No. 39 pair lost 19-21, 12-21 to the Chinese Taipei team of Hsu Ya Ching and Wu Ti Jung.
Saina and Srikanth to begin their challenges later
Later in the day, 2015 runner-up Saina Nehwal will play her blockbuster first round match against the defending champion and World No. 11 Nozomi Okuhara of Japan. Nehwal is seeded eighth this time around and leads the head-to-head record 5-1.
In the men’s singles, Srikanth Kidambi will play his opener against World No. 53, Zhao Junpeng, of China.
The World No. 13 mixed doubles duo of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy too will be in action against the formidable Koreans, Yoo Yeon Seong and Kim Ha Na.
