Saina, Sindhu begin with wins at ABC

Olympic-bound Indian shuttlers, Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu won their respective women’s singles matches to make a resounding start to their campaign at the Badminton Asia Championship at Wuhan, China, on Wednesday.

Fifth seed Saina disposed off Indonesia’s Fitriani Fitriani 21-16, 21-17, while Sindhu brushed aside another Indonesian Maria Febe Kusumastuti 21-10, 21-13 in a half an hour contest in the opening round.

In the next round, world no. 8 Saina will face the winner of the match between Indonesia’s Lindaweni Fanetri and Thailand’s Nitchaon Jindapol, while ranked 10th Sindhu will meet eighth seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei.

However, it was a bad day for other Indians in the fray here, the last event before the Olympic qualification deadline.

Korea’s Chang Ye Na and Lee So Hee defeated Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa 21-15, 21-11 in the women’s doubles, while the men’s doubles combo of Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy suffered a 15-21, 13-21 loss to fifth seeded Japanese pair of Hiroyuki Endo and Kenichi Hayakawa.

Another men’s doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar also faced defeat, losing 19-21, 17-21 to Or Chin Chung and Tang Chun Man of Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Kidambi Srikanth failed to cross the first round hurdle in the men’s singles event after being stunned by unseeded Korean shuttler Lee Dong Keun.

The eight seeded Indian lost 21-13, 12-21, 19-21 in a contest that lasted an hour and 15 minutes.