Sindhu advances, Kashyap falters in Asian badminton (Roundup)

Taipei, April 18 (IANS):

Rising Indian shuttler P.V. Sindhu added another feather to her cap after defeating former World No.1 Shixian Wang of China at the Badminton Asia Championships here Thursday.

In the process, the 17-year-old progressed to the women’s singles quarter-finals of the continental event.

It took Sindhu a marathon effort to beat the third seeded Chinese 15-21, 21-14, 22-20 in their first ever encounter which lasted one hour and two minutes at the Taipei Arena. The Hyderabadi will next face Japanese seventh seed Eriko Hirose, who has beaten Sindhu in their only meeting so far.

However, it was the end of the road for all other Indian shuttlers in the Chinese Taipei capital.

City-mate and fourth seed Parupalli Kashyap went out in the men’s singles third round to Chinese 15th seed Huan Gao 19-21, 15-21 in 50 minutes. Earlier in the day, World No.7 Kashyap beat local lad Han Chou Chu 21-17, 21-19 in their first-ever clash in 31 minutes.

Gao now has a 2-1 head-to-head after beating the Indian.

B. Sai Praneeth‘s journey also ended after losing his second-round match against Chinese sixth seed Zhengming Wang 15-21, 16-21 in 36 minutes.

India’s doubles campaign also came to an end as Pradnya Gadre and Ashwini Ponnappa lost their women’s doubles match against Hong Kong pairing of Lok Yan Poon and Ying Suet Tse 15-21, 11-21 in 26 minutes.