As expected, top seed Saina Nehwal made a winning start to her campaign at the India Open badminton but it was end of the road for World No. 7 Parupalli Kashyap at the Siri Fort Sports Complex here on Wednesday.
Saina, the London Olympics bronze medallist, took just 33 minutes to breeze past Indonesian Belaetrix Manuputi 21-12, 21-15 in the women’s singles, while fifth seed Kashyap failed to overcome former World No. 1 Taufik Hidayat, bowing out 21-13, 21-23, 18-21 in a keenly-contested men’s singles first round clash.
Saina now faces Japan’s Yui Hashimoto in next round.
The Kashyap disappointment notwithstanding, there was good news in the Indian camp with P.V.
Sindhu, Ajay Jayaram, R.M.V. Guru Sai Dutt and K.Srikanth turning in gritty performances.
While Sindhu showed Chinese Xue Yao the door with a 17-21, 21-18, 21-14 victory, World No. 30 Jayaram saw off Vladimir Malkov 21-17, 21-17. Guru Sai Dutt won by a 21-16, 21-17 margin against Indonesian Tommy Sugiarto. Anand Pawar too advanced with a 11-21, 21-13, 21-19 win over Japan’s Takuma Ueda.
But the highlight of the day was promising youngster Srikanth’s upset win over fourth seeded Dane Jan O Jorgensen 21-7, 18-21, 21-12.
“It is one of the biggest wins of my career. I lost to him (Jorgensen) in the Swiss Open so it was a sweet victory for me,” said Srikanth.
Having made early exits in the previous editions of the event, Saina began on a strong note as she led throughout the first game.
Relying on smashes and cross court tosses, the World No. 2 opened up 4-1, before quickly moving to 143.
Though the Indonesian capitalised on a few unforced errors, the Indian took away the game with a winner.
In contrast, the second game was keenly contested as Balaetrix came up with a strong counter to Saina’s attacks and caught up with the Indian on several occasions. Trailing 2-5, the Indonesian made it 5-5 before making it 9-8. But Saina came back to level with the opponent at 10-10 before leading 17-14 and then went on to win from there.
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