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PV Sindhu on course to face Saina Nehwal at Indonesia Masters badminton
If PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal both win their respective women’s singles Round 2 matches, they will face each other in the quarterfinals.
Following victories in their respective openers, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal are on course to take on each other in the women’s singles quarterfinals at the $350,000 Indonesia Masters Super 500 badminton tournament in Jakarta.
Saina made a positive start to the new season, edging past China’s Chen Yufei in a thrilling opening round match on Wednesday. London Olympics bronze medallist Saina, who is coming back from an ankle injury, dug deep into her reservoir to eke out a 22-24, 21-15, 21-14 win over world No.7 Chen in a match that lasted an hour and nine minutes. She will face China’s Chen Xiaoxin in the next round on Thursday.
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A little while later, second seed Sindhu ousted local player Hanna Ramadini 21-13, 21-10 in 34 minutes and will take on Malaysian qualifier Goh Jin Wei in the second round.
Young men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also crossed the opening hurdle after beating eighth seeded Japanese pair of Takuto Inque and Yuki Kaneko 21-15, 21-17 to set up a clash with Chinese Taipei’s Liao Min Chun and Su Ching Heng in the second round.
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Earlier, Sameer Verma, who recently recovered from a shoulder injury, suffered a 16-21, 21-12,10-21 loss to Japan’s Kazumasa Sakai in a men’s singles match. Reigning Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap also went down to Wei Feng Chong, with the Malaysian winning 21-18, 21-18 in 41 minutes.
Men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy also lost 18-21, 21-16, 16-21 to Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han to bow out of the tournament.
(With inputs from PTI)
