Saina Nehwal swiftly storms into pre-quarterfinals of World Badminton Championships

NewsBharati    31-Jul-2018
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Beijing, July 31: Star Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal swiftly stormed into the pre-quarterfinals of the World Badminton Championships which is being held in Nanjing, China. While Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth progressed to the Men's Singles second round.

 

Saina Nehwal today came out aggressively in the badminton court and defeated Turkey's Aliye Demirbag by 21-17, 21-8 in her second match to set up a pre-quarterfinal clash with 2013 champion Ratchanok Inthanon of Thailand. The Olympic medallist Indian had received a bye in the first round. Saina had bagged a Bronze medal at the Championships last year.

Earlier in the day, in men’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth outclassed Ireland's Nhat Nguyen 21-15 21-16 in his campaign opener and progressed to the second round of the tournament. HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma and B Sai Praneeth have received a walkover and sailed to a second round.

World number three PV Sindhu, who won the Silver medal last year, will play her second round match against Fitriani of Indonesia, later in the tournament. On the other side, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa registered a comprehensive victory over German pair of Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Herttrich by 10-21 21-17 21-18 to enter the pre-quarterfinals.

Unfortunately, the men's doubles pair of Arjun MR and Ramchandran Shlok couldn't cross the opening hurdle as the lost the very first match by 14-21 15-21 to the Malaysian pair of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi. The top mixed doubles pair of Pranav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy also crashed out of the tournament after losing Indonesian pair of Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaj by 16-21 4-21.