PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy

NEW DELHI: It was a mixed day for India at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham on Thursday as its shuttlers faced different outcomes in the second round of the tournament.

Fourth seed PV Sindhu and unseeded HS Prannoy registered contrasting wins to advance to the next round, while third seed Kidambi Srikanth lost his pre-quarterfinal to bow out of the prestigious event. India’s men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also failed to clear the hurdles on Thursday.

Sindhu defeated Nitchaon Jindapol of Thailand in three games to book her place in the women's singles quarter-finals. Whereas in the men's singles event, Prannoy beat Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia in straight games to enter the last-eight stage. Prannoy will face Huang Yuxiang of China, who defeated Srikanth late on Thursday.

Sindhu, TOISA 2018 Badminton Player of the Year, overcame Jindapol 21-13, 13-21, 21-18 in the second-round contest which lasted one hour and six minutes. Sindhu will face the seventh seed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in the quarters.

"I definitely need to improve. I am happy to pull off a tough match. I hope I would go back, recover and come back stronger tomorrow. I am not thinking too much about the tournament" Sindhu said after the match. "She is not an easy player. She gave away easy points initially and after winning the first game, it was not easy as there were long rallies. She has got good strokes.

"Till the last point, I fought and finally won 21-18. I was just thinking about the next point as I was trailing and I had to remain focussed on each point. I could have played more patiently in the decider when I was 12-16. I made too many unforced errors there," Sindhu added.

Sindhu, who had to sweat hard in her opening game on Wednesday too, started the match aggressively and was leading 6-3 in no time. And she went into the mid-game break at 11-5, a six-point advantage. She did not give away much chance to her opponent, against whom she had a 2-1 head-to-head lead before the match. Sindhu maintained a healthy lead in the opening game and won it 21-13 comfortably in just 19 minutes.

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In the second game, Sindhu and Jindapol exchanged early points to be at 2-2 when the Thai took the lead for the first time in the contest. And from 5-3, Jindapol won six consecutive points to take a 11-3 lead at the break. Sindhu found it tough to reduce the eight-point deficit. The closest Sindhu got in the second game was when she was trailing 13-17, but after that Jindapol cruised to 21-13 win with some brilliant all-round play.

The momentum changed in the decider and Sindhu raced to 3-0 lead early in the third game. Sindhu was leading 8-4, when Jindapol produced another spurt of aggressive play to make a mini-comeback and levelled the decider 9-9. Sindhu though went into the crucial final break with 11-9 lead.

But Jindapol won three consecutive points soon after the break to surge ahead and at one point was leading the Indian 16-12. World No 3 Sindhu then fought back to level the score 16-16. The duo exchanged points after that and the contest was well balanced at 18-18, but Sindhu held her nerves to wrap up the decider 21-18.

Later in the day, the 16th-ranked Prannoy took 38 minutes to beat Sugiarto 21-10, 21-19 in the second round.

Prannoy started positively and took a 4-1 early lead in the first game and went into the break with five-point advantage at 11-6. Prannoy then increased the momentum further to win the opening game 21-10 without much fuss. But the second game was an evenly contested affair with both exchanging leads many a times. Prannoy trailed 8-11 at break but eventually he overcame the challenge 21-19 to move further in the competition.

In the other men's singles match, Srikanth, TOISA 2018 Sportsperson of the Year, took time to get going against Yuxiang and found himself trailing 5-11 at break of the opening game. Srikanth failed to give much fight afterward and lost the game 11-21 in just 12 minutes. But the third seed Indian bounced back in the second game and took a 6-1 lead quickly before going into break at 11-5. Srikanth then kept a healthy lead to draw level in the match with a 21-15 win and forced the third and deciding game.

The decider was a tight affair, Srikanth and Yuxiang fought gallantly for each point but the Chinese took a 11-10 lead at the break. The match went neck-and-neck and Srikanth seemed to have peaked at the right time when he got a match point at 20-18. But Yuxiang did not budge and saved two match points before clinching the game 22-20 and with it the match in 52 minutes.

In men's doubles, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty went down fighting against the second seeded pair of Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen. The India pair lost 16-21, 21-16, 21-23 in the contest which lasted more than an hour.

In the last match of the day, the mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Sikki Reddy were beaten by Wang Yilhu and Huang Dongping 10-21, 6-21.



In Video: All England Open: PV Sindhu sails into last 8