Kidambi Srikanth and Saina Nehwal registered contrasting wins to reach the quarterfinals of the All England badminton championship in Birmingham on Thursday while Sai Praneeth’s campaign came to an end.
Nehwal had to fight back from a disastrous opening game to defeat Denmark’s Line Kjaersfedlt 8-21, 21-16, 21-13 and reach her eighth consecutive All England quarterfinals. The match lasted 51 minutes.
Srikanth, meanwhile, started well, lost his way in the second game but managed to curb his errors in the decider to pack off Asian Games gold medallist Jonatan Christie of Indonesia 21-17, 11-21, 21-12 in 58 minutes.
Nehwal bounces back in style
With all other Indians knocked out of the competition when they took to court, all eyes were on the two former world number ones and they delivered when it mattered.
Nehwal was the first in action and it looked like the 28-year-old could also be heading home when she lost the opening game in just 12 minutes, spraying her smashes wide and clearly struggling to find her rhythm.
The 2015 All England finallist then trailed 9-11 in the second game as Kjaersfedlt caught the Indian off guard with her cross court drops on both sides of the court. But the Dane’s inexperience showed when she tried to play sharper strokes as the match progressed, trying to win points quicker, and ended up making mistakes — Nehwal made her pay for them.
The 28-year-old Indian rarely allows to go an opportunity go waste and once she found a way to take the upper hand in the second game, she romped home to victory.
She will now face the world No 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the last eight. The defending champion from Chinese Taipei made short work of USA’s Beiwen Zhang. From trailing 1-8 in the first game, she won 21-15, 21-14 in just 31 minutes against the 2018 Indian Open champion.
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Topsy-turvy win for Srikanth
Later in the day, Srikanth was much more assertive against Christie but suffered a lapse in concentration in the second game.
The 26-year-old used his array of slices and flick smashes to bulldoze Christie in the opening game. But the change of ends also brought change in fortunes for the Indonesian as Srikanth struggled to control his lifts from the difficult side and lost rather easily.
He, however, took control of the proceedings immediately in the third game and opened up a 11-4 lead and the final change of ends did not matter this time around as he set up a quarterfinal encounter against world No 1 Kenta Momota.
Earlier, B Sai Praneeth once again flattered to deceive as he went down 21-12, 21-17 against Ng Ka Long Angus in the men’s singles second round.
The 2017 Singapore Superseries champion looked strong in the opening game as he held a 10-8 lead before his opponent won 13 of the next 15 points to take the opening game. Sai Praneeth was then always playing catch up in the second and lost in 35 minutes. The Indian did not make the most of a draw that opened up for him after the upsets on day one.