Malaysia Masters 2022: Sindhu, Prannoy advance to second round; Saina crashes out

Kuala Lumpur: Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu had to toil before emerging victorious in the opening round of the Malaysia Masters while compatriot Saina Nehwal made a second consecutive first-round exit here on Wednesday. The seventh-seeded Sindhu took close to an hour to knock out China’s He Bing Jiao 21-13,17-21,21-15 and move to the second […]

Kuala Lumpur: Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu had to toil before emerging victorious in the opening round of the Malaysia Masters while compatriot Saina Nehwal made a second consecutive first-round exit here on Wednesday.

The seventh-seeded Sindhu took close to an hour to knock out China’s He Bing Jiao 21-13,17-21,21-15 and move to the second round. With this win, world number seven Sindhu exacted revenge for her first-round exit from the Indonesia Open Super 1000 last month, when Bing Jiao had defeated her in straight games. The Chinese though still leads the head to head 10-9.

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London Olympics bronze medallist Saina, on the other hand, squandered a one-game lead to go down 21-16,17-21,14-21 to Kim Ga Eun of South Korea. The world number 24 Indian had also made a first-round exit from the Malaysia Open Super 750 tournament last week.

In the men’s singles, HS Prannoy sailed into the second round after he claimed a comfortable 21-19,21-14 victory over Frenchman Brice Leverdez. In the other men’s singles events, B Sai Praneeth and Parupalli Kashyap also moved to the second round, but with contrasting wins. While Praneeth hardly broke a sweat against Kevin Cordon, registering an easy 21-8,21-9 win over the Guatemalan in less than half an hour.

Kashyap came back from a one-game deficit to beat local favourite Tommy Sugiarto 16-21,21-16, 21-16. Praneeth will take on Li Shi Feng in the pre-quarterfinals. However, it was the end of the road for Sameer Verma, who went down fighting to fourth seed Chinese Taipei shuttler Chou Tien Chen 21-10,12-21,14-21. The women’s doubles pair of N Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa lost 19-21,21-18,16-21 to the Indonesian duo of Fabriana Kusuma and Amalia Pratiwi in a hard-fought game that lasted a little more than an hour.