Hong Kong Open Superseries: PV Sindhu the sole Indian survivor as Saina Nehwal, HS Prannoy crash out in second round.

Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, who had entered the Hong Kong Superseries badminton championships specifically to protect her World No 2 ranking, remained the sole Indian to enter the quarter-finals of the $400,000 prize money tournament, as compatriots Saina Nehwal and HS Prannoy were shown the door in second-round on Thursday.

Sindhu gave a substantially improved performance over her tepid display in the China Open Superseries Premier last week, to notch a convincing 21-14, 21-17 victory in 39 minutes against former Asian junior champion Aya Ohori, and take her career head-to-head record against the Japanese 21-year-old to 3-0.

File photo of PV Sindhu. AFP.File photo of PV Sindhu. AFP.
Breaking away from five-all in the opening game, the lanky Indian smashed her way to 9-5, and never relinquished her lead. It was almost an identical story in the second stanza, where an initial 5-1 lead sufficed for her to seal the deal.

Basically, it was the confidence of having beaten Ohori twice before that enabled the second seed to book a quarter-final slot against Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi, whom she will be meeting for the second time this season. Sindhu suffered a humiliating 14-21, 9-21 loss to the Japanese in the French Open last month, though she still leads their head-to-heads 3-2.

However, Sindhu’s conqueror in the recent Indian National final, Nehwal, frittered away a decent start to steadily lose steam against the speedy and fit No 8 seed, Chen Yufei of China, and ended up on the wrong side of an 18-21, 21-19, 21-10 verdict, in what was the first meeting between the two players.

Friday’s quarter-final line-up is as follows (prefix denotes seeding; Q indicates qualifier; PFQ indicates promoted from qualifying):

Men’s singles:

PFQ-Kazumasa Sakai (Japan) vs Anders Antonsen (Denmark),

Q-Lee Dong Keun (South Korea) vs 5-Chen Long (China),

6-Shi Yuqi (China) vs 3-Lin Dan (China),

8-Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia) vs 2-Son Wan Ho (South Korea).

Women’s singles:

1-Tai Tzu Ying (Chinese Taipei) vs 8-Chen Yufei (China),

3-Sung Ji Hyun (South Korea) vs 7-He Bingjiao (China),

6-Ratchanok Intanon (Thailand) vs Michelle Li (Canada),

5-Akane Yamaguchi (Japan) vs 2-Pusarla V Sindhu (India).