Indian women’s singles badminton star PV Sindhu cruised into the Round of 16 after a solid opening win at the 2024 Spain Masters Super 300 on Wednesday.
Sindhu beat Canada’s Wen Yu Zhang 21-16, 21-12 in an encounter that lasted only 30 minutes.
However, Ashmita Chaliha lost 13-21, 11-21 to fourth seed Ratchanok Intanon from Thailand in the women’s singles event.
The Indian challenge also ended in men’s singles with the likes of Kidambi Srikanth, Kiran George, Mithun Manjunath and Sathish Kumar Karunakaran all losing their opening round encounters.
Seventh seed Srikanth was beaten 18-21, 15-21 by qualifier Koo Takahashi from Japan while both George and Manjunath fell to Taiwanese shuttlers in straight games.
Meanwhile, the mixed doubles pairing of Sikki Reddy and B Sumeeth Reddy also made their way into the second round of the tournament. The Indian duo beat Chinese Taipei’s Chen Zhi Ray and Yang Ching Tun 16-21, 22-20, 21-14 in a match that took just under an hour to complete.
Karunakaran also exited the mixed doubles category with partner Aadya Variyath after losing 18-21, 14-21 to the Indonesian pair of Rinov Rivaldy and Pitha Haningtyas Mentari.
For Sindhu, who has been making her way back on the BWF Tour schedule after sitting out a good portion of last season with an injury, this match was relatively straight-forward.
The opening game saw Wen keep pace with Sindhu all through most of the game. The Canadian had a slim lead of 11-10 at the mid-game break. Afterwards, Sindhu came back with four consecutive points to open up the gap to 14-11, but was unable to hold on to the lead as Wen levelled proceedings at 14-14.
However, Sindhu dug deep and used her experience to get that edge and charge ahead, clinching the game 21-16.
The second game began in a similar fashion with both players exchanging serves until Sindhu went on a six-point winning streak when she was trailing at 4-5 to take a decisive lead at 10-4.
The lead was maintained by the Indian even after the mid-game break and Wen didn’t have much chance, unlike the previous game, to try and wrestle some control from Sindhu who ultimately closed out the second game 21-12 and sealed the match win.