PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth registered hard fought victories to enter the quarterfinals of their respective events at the USD 1 million China Open in Changzhou on Thursday.
Third seed Sindhu bounced back after losing a close first game to record a 21-23, 21-13, 21-18 win in her second round women’s singles match against Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan. The match lasted 69 minutes.
Srikanth’s men’s singles match against Suppanyu Avihingsanon too went down to the wire. The seventh seeded Indian won the first game comfortably but the Thai player levelled the match.
The decider could have gone either way but Srikanth held his nerve to advance in the competition with a 21-12, 15-21, 24-22 win. The Indian No 1 had to fight hard when he missed out on three match points at 20-17 and one more at 22-21 to eventually prevail over the Thailand shuttler in 63 minutes, converting his fifth match point. Suppanyu had a match point himself at 21-20 which Srikanth saved.
Srikanth now faces a tough challenge against third seed and the man in red-hot form, Kento Momota in the quarter-final. Sindhu will fifth seed Chen Yufei from China.
However, India’s campaign ended in the doubles and mixed doubles events.
Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy went down 14-21, 11-21 against top seeds from China, Siwei Zheng and Huang Yaqiong in the round of 16.
Sikki Reddy and Pranav Jerry Chopra also met a similar fate, losing 16-21, 10-21 to sixth seeds Christinna Pedersen and Mathias Christiansen of Denmark.
In the men’s doubles, Mannu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy were outplayed by Chen Hung Ling and Wang Chi-Lin 9-21 10-21.