India Open: Chaliha stuns 5th seed Kosetskaya, Sindhu sails into 2nd round

New Delhi: Young Indian shuttler Ashmita Chaliha recorded the first upset of the India Open when she stunned fifth seed Evgeniya Kosetskaya while top seed PV Sindhu sailed into the women’s singles second round of the tournament here on Tuesday. Reigning world champion Loh Kean Yew was stretched to three games while home favourite Kidambi […]

New Delhi: Young Indian shuttler Ashmita Chaliha recorded the first upset of the India Open when she stunned fifth seed Evgeniya Kosetskaya while top seed PV Sindhu sailed into the women’s singles second round of the tournament here on Tuesday.

Reigning world champion Loh Kean Yew was stretched to three games while home favourite Kidambi Srikanth registered a convincing win in their respective men’s singles first round matches of the World Tour 500 tournament series event.

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Loh defeated Canada’s Xiaodong Sheng 16-21, 21-4, 21-13 while Srikanth packed off former junior world No. 1 Siril Verma 21-17, 21-10 to advance to the second round.

Earlier in day, unseeded Chaliha took just 31 minutes to get the better of world number 28 Russian 24-22 21-16, while double Olympic medallist Sindhu cruised past compatriot Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli 21-5 21-16 in her opening round.

However, it was curtains for Chirag Sen as he lost 8-21 7-21 to Soong Joo Ven of Malaysia in the men’s singles opening round. In her opener, Chaliha began strongly by employing her down-the-line smashes to open up an 11-5 lead.

However, the Indian made a lot of errors after the break and Kosetsyaka pounced on the opportunity to first level the score at 14-14 and then fight back from 16-19 to earn her first game point.

But the girl from Guwahati, who had lost to the Russian in their earlier contest back in 2019, managed to regroup and forced her opponent to make an unforced error and then saved two more game points before clinching the opener with a smash.

Chaliha will next face France’s Yaelle Hoyaux, who defeated India’s Riya Mookerjee 14-21 13-21. Srikanth will face Denmark’s Kim Brunn, who defeated India’s Subhankar Dey 21-19, 18-21, 21-14 in one hour and 15 minutes.

In the other matches of the opening session, the mixed doubles pair of K Sai Prateekh and Gayatri Gopichand defeated Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Castro 21-16 16-21 21-17.

The men’s doubles top seeds Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia got their campaign off to a winning start by beating India’s Prem Singh Chouhan and Rajesh Verma 21-18 21-10.

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