After a disappointing campaign at the Malaysia Open Superseries Premier, Indian shuttlers turned it around in spectacular fashion at the $350,000 OUE Singapore Open as three singles players as well as a doubles team made it to the quarter-finals of this Superseries tournament on Thursday.
Fifth seed PV Sindhu came back after squandering the first game to notch up a 19-21, 21-17, 21-8 win over World No. 27 Fitriani Fitriani of Indonesia. In men's singles, both Srikanth Kidambi and Sai Praneeth had to fight hard for a last-eight berth.
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Srikanth saved three match points to edge past the 39th ranked Indonesian Ihsan Maulana Mustofa, 18-21, 21-19, 22-20 while Sai upset the 23rd ranked Chinese Qiao Bin, 21-15, 21-23, 21-16.
Ashwini Ponnappa and B Sumeeth Reddy were the only Indian doubles team to enter the quarters. The newly-formed mixed doubles duo stormed back from a first-game deficit to secure a 17-21, 21-17, 21-16 win over the Korean combine of Jae Hwan Kim and Lee So Hee.
Ponnappa also managed to take a game and stretch the top seeds and World No. 1 pair of Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi in her women’s doubles second round match alongside N Sikki Reddy. But the Japanese denied them the victory as they prevailed over them, 21-11, 19-21, 21-12.
Sindhu vs Marin next
Sindhu has thus set up a blockbuster quarter-final match against the fourth seed and Olympic champion Carolina Marin. The two met as recently as two weeks ago in the India Open final where the Indian emerged a straight games winner.
That was the Rio Olympic silver medallist’s second consecutive win over the Spanish southapaw after having beaten the two-time world champion in the Dubai World Superseries Finals group match in December as well.
Both Srikanth and Sai have tough tasks in the last-eight. Srikanth faces the in-form fifth seeded Chinese Shi Yuqi, the highlight of whose 2017 season so far has been a runner-up finish at the All England Championships.
Sai will lock horns with the eighth seeded Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand for a place in the semi-finals.
Ponnappa and Sumeeth Reddy too have an equally tough proposition as they face the third seeds Lu Kai and Huang Yaqiong of China.
