India’s women’s singles stars Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu had to dig deep to register win in their respective first round encounters while Kidambi Srikanth sailed into the second round of the Indonesia Masters BWF World Tour Super 500 tournament in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Saina fought back after a first game reversal to beat Indonesia’s Dinar Ayustine 7-21, 21-16, 21-11 while Sindhu got the better of 2012 London Olympics gold medallist 22-24, 21-8, 21-17 in the first round encounters.
In between these two women’s singles matches, Srikanth hammered Chong Wei Feng 21-12, 21-8 in just 30 minutes to set up a second round clash against Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto.
While Srikanth had it easy, Saina and Sindhu got a wake up call early in the tournament.
Nehwal looked completely out of sorts in the opening round against the 50th-ranked Ayustine in the opening game. But that turned out to be just a blip as she regained composure midway through the second game as she turned around a 12-9 deficit to take the match to the decider.
The third and final game was an one-sided affair after the Indonesian kept pace only till 3-3 as Nehwal eased to a 7-21, 21-16, 21-11 win in 49 minutes.
The eighth seed will now face another Indonesian Fitriani Fitriani in the second round.
Later in the day, Sindhu played catch up with Xuerui in the opening game only to raise the bar in the second. In the decider, the two experienced campaigners were going neck and neck till 17-17 before the Indian broke free with four straight points to set up a second round encounter against local hope Gregoria Mariska Tungjung.
Earlier, national champions Manu Atri and B Sumeeth Reddy came back from a first game reversal to beat the new-look Danish combination of Mads Kolding and Niclas Nohr 14-21, 21-19, 21-15.
In the men’s singles, qualifier Shubhankar Dey managed to take a game off former world champion Viktor Axelsen but lost 21-14, 19-21, 21-15 while B Sai Praneeth went down 21-12, 21-16 against China’s Chen Long.
Earlier, women’s doubles combination of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy went down 21-14, 21-14 against the Thai pairing of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai.
