World No 3 PV Sindhu cruised past Evgeniya Kosetskaya of Russia in the opening round of the China Open Super 750 badminton tournament in Fuzhou on Tuesday.
The Olympic silver medallist registered a 21-13, 21-19 win in a match that lasted less than 30 minutes.
Sindhu, who is seeded third, hardly broke a sweat in the first game. Kosetskaya kept up with Sindhu till 7-7 before the Indian pulled away and won the first game easily.
The unseeded Russian tested Sindhu in the second game, which went down to the wire. However, the Indian emerged victorious in straight games in the end.
Sindhu will now take on the unseeded Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand in the second round.
Earlier in the day, the world No 26 women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy fought hard but went down to sixth seeds Shiho Tanaka and Koharu Yonemoto after playing three games. Ponanappa and Reddy lost 21-19, 15-21, 21-17.
In another doubles match, India’s Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy lost the first game 16-21 to sixth seeds Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen but then fought back to bag six game points in the second at 20-14. The Indians should have taken the match into a decider from there but incredibly squandered all their game points to allow the Danes back. Astrup and Rasmussen eventually won the match 21-16, 27-25.
Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy / Chirag Shetty, Satwik / Ashwini, and Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka will all be in action on Wednesday.
With inputs from PTI
