Charging hopes alive, India sets foot in quarterfinals of All England Open 2020

Birmingham, March 13: Having a stumbling start, top shuttler PV Sindhu willingly ensured to keep India's hopes alive by winning over Sung Ji Hyun in the straight games. With this India now has entered into the quarterfinals of All England Open 2020 here on Thursday. While Sindhu is the only player representing India at the tournament, the only shuttler for men's singles, Lakshya Sen was defeated against the second-seeded Viktor Axelsen.

 

 

Though PV Sindhu had some initial hiccups, she beat the South Korean 21-19, 21-15 in 49 minutes. In the first set of the match, both had a neck-to-neck competition, however, in the last few minutes, she coped up by holding her nerves to win. What's more that in the the second set, India managed to win comfortably as Ji Hyun's few errors led the sixth-seeded Sindhu to reach the quarterfinals. Sindhu who had equal head-to-head against the South Korean bettered her record with 9-8.

It is in the men's singles, that Lakshya Sen gave a good fight to Denmark's Axelsen but catering to the continuous mistakes, was knocked out of the tournament in the straight games, 17-21, 18-21 which lasted by 45 minutes. The women's doubles, too, went down against the seventh-seeded, Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi of Japan.

Further, having a good start at the event, Sindhu has earned victory over both Beiwen Zhang of China and Ji Hyun who have been a pain in the neck for India in the last few encounters. Last year, in the same event, Sindhu had lost the match against South Korean. The silver Olympic medallist will be up against her 'favorite' Nozomi Okuhara of Japan. Though having a better record against the fourth-seeded Japanese player, while coming across her, Sindhu will be facing a tough match. She needs to maintain her ranking sixth till the end of April to qualify for Tokyo Olympics 2020.