A terrific PV Sindhu marched into the quarter-finals of the prestigious All England Open Badminton Championships for the first time with a thoroughly dominating win over the 39th ranked Dinar Dyah Ayustine at Birmingham on Thursday. The sixth seed hardly broke sweat and needed just 30 minutes to notch up a 21-12, 21-4 win over the Indonesian.
At no point in the match was she challenged. The World No. 6 finished in the way she began, routing her lower-ranked opponent. Even taping on her knee could not deter the highly confident Indian.
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It is a far cry from last year when the Pullela Gopichand protégé crashed out in the first round in a three-game thriller.
Ruthless, aggressive and not afraid to take her chances, the 21-year-old won the China Open Superseries Premier as well as the Syed Modi International Grand Prix Gold title after her silver medal win at the Rio Olympics. Not only that, she also made it to the final of the Hong Kong Open and the semi-finals of the World Superseries Finals.
At the 2017 All England Championships, she has looked impeccable so far in the two matches that she has played. She opened her campaign with a comfortable 21-10, 21-11 victory over the Danish World No. 33 Mette Poulsen and continued in the same vein today.
Her road, however, gets tougher from here on as she can come up against the top seed and World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the quarter-finals.
Nehwal and Prannoy later in action
Later in the day, India’s Saina Nehwal and HS Prannoy will be in action as they seek a quarter-final berth at the season’s first Superseries Premier event. While Nehwal faces the 63rd ranked Fabienne Deprez of Germany, Prannoy has a tough task as he will be up against the seventh seed Tian Houwei of China.
Earlier in the first round, the 2015 runner-up Nehwal ousted the defending champion Nozomi Okuhara 21-15, 21-14.
Prannoy, in contrast, had to take a steeper road to reach the second round. He was two points away from defeat at 16-19 against the World No. 24 Qiao Bin from where he regrouped amazingly to take the next five points and grab a 17-21, 22-20, 21-19 win.
