London Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal advanced to the quarterfinals of the All England Championship with a straight-game victory over Belaetrix Manuputi of Indonesia in the second round of the women's singles competition here today.
World number two Saina defeated Belaetrix 21-16 21-11 in a 34-minute match at the National Indoor Arena here. The 22-year-old will next take on sixth seed Chinese Shixian Wang tomorrow.
Rising Indian shuttler P V Sindhu, however, crashed out after suffering a straight-game defeat to fourth seed Juliane Schenk of German in the prequarterfinals of the USD 400,000 Super series premier tournament.
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World number 16 Sindhu suffered a 17-21 14-21 loss to the German in a 39-minute women's singles match here. Juliane rode on her smashes and better net play to outdo the Indian.
Among others, top Indian male shuttler Parupalli Kashyap booked his place in the pre-quarterfinals of singles event after notching up a straight-game win over Jen Hao Hsu of Chinese Taipei last night. World number nine Kashyap won his first round match 21-17 21-18 in 43 minutes. He now runs into seventh seed Kenichi Tago of Japan later tonight. Sourabh Verma, who made it to the main draw after playing in the qualifying round, was the other Indian who made it to the round of 16 in the men's singles event.
Saina Nehwal. Pic/ Agencies
Verma beat Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka of Indonesia 10-21 21-14 24-22 in a hard-fought 59-minute duel. He now faces eighth seed Tien Minh Nguyen of Vietnam in the pre-quarters later. It was, however, curtains for Ajay Jayaram who lost 21-15 18-21 10-21 to Zhengming Wang of China in the opening round.
In the mixed doubles event, V Diju and Jwala Gutta made it to the pre-quarterfinals with a 21-9 21-17 win over Peter Kaesbauer and Isabel Herttrich of Germany, but the other two Indian pairs -- Akshay Dewalkar and Pradnya Gadre, and Tarun Kona and Ashwini Ponnappa -- fell by the wayside.
Dewalkar and Gadre lost to Malaysian combination of Jian Guo Ong and Yin Loo Lim 8-21 13-21, while Kona and Ponnappa were beaten 18-21 10-21 by Fran Kurniawan and Shendy Puspa Irawati of Indonesia.
In the women's singles match, Saina used her smashes to good use to outclass the Indonesian, who played well at the nets but didnt have enough strokes in her armour to challenge the Indian. After surging ahead with a 7-3 lead, Saina went into the breather at 11-7 but the Indonesian calwed back at 12-12.
However, the Indian was unfazed and slowly marched ahead to pocket the first game. In the second game, Saina was more dominating and was 11-2 up midway. After that, though the Belaetrix tried her best, Saina didn't give much chance to her unfancied rival to seal the issue comfortably. In contrast, her younger colleague Sindhu, who was up against a superior opponent in Juliane, found the going tough today.
Sindhu had a 5-1 lead but she could not held on to it as Juliane caught up at 6-6 and then both of them went neck and neck, before the German nosed ahead with four points straight. In the second game, Sindhu once again had a 3-0 advantage but the German soon got past her after reeling off five consecutive points and then held her fort as Sindhu crumbled.
Jwala Gutta and V Diju, who earlier made it to the pre-quarterfinals, too crashed out of the tournament after a 17-21 16-21 loss to Polish pair of Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba in a mixed doubles match.
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