India’s Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu registered contrasting victories to reach the quarterfinals of the China Open Super 750 badminton tournament in Fuzhou on Thursday. Men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty prevailed in a tough encounter to book their quarter-final spot.
While Srikanth came back from a game down to defeat Indonesia’s Tommy Sugiarto 10-21, 21-9, 21-9, Sindhu eased to a 21-12, 21-15 win over Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand in the second round encounters.
Srikanth, who is chasing his first major title this year after a stupendous 2017, couldn’t find his rhythm in the opening game as he conceded six straight points to hand the advantage to his opponent in the opening game.
But the match turned on its head after Sugiarto won the seventh straight point to begin proceedings in the second game. Sriknath began dominating the exchanges after that and went on to win the match in just 45 minutes. He will now face the winner of the match between fourth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei and Daren Liew of Malaysia.
In the women’s singles, Sindhu probably lost her concentration at the start of the second game when she conceded seven straight points. But apart from that period of uncertainty, the Indian was controlled the proceedings brilliantly to make it to the last eight in just 37 minutes.
She will now face her French Open conquerer He Bingjiao or Canada’s Michelle Li.
The men’s doubles combination of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy defeated world no 14, Indonesia’s Wahyu Pangkaryanira and Ade Yusuf Santoso, in the second round 16-21, 21-14, 21-15 in a grueling encounter that lasted for an hour.
