All England Open: PV Sindhu wins as Kidambi Srikanth, Parupalli Kashyap suffer first round exits

World Champion PV Sindhu on Wednesday breezed into the second round of the ongoing All England Open but ace Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Parupalli Kashyap were knocked out after suffering first-round losses in the men’s singles on Wednesday.

The Indian women’s duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy and men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also progressed to the second round with straight game wins.

Srikanth and Kashyap lost to Vietnam-born Irishman Nhat Nguyen and Japan’s world number one Kento Momota respectively before Sindhu dished out a disciplined performance to outwit world number 32 Soniia Cheah of Malaysia 21-11, 21-17 in 38 minutes.

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After an initial neck and neck battle till 7-7, Sindhu went into the break with a three-point advantage and wrapped up the opening game in 16 minutes.

In the second game, Soniia managed to eke out a 10-8 lead. However, two unforced errors in the latter stages handed Sindhu three match points and she sealed it when the Malaysian went long again.

Sindhu will face Denmark’s Line Christophersen in the next round.

In the men’s singles clash, 20-year-old Irishman Nguyen raced away to clinch the first set 21-10. The world number 80 led in the second set as well, before 28-year-old Srikanth rallied back to level the tie at a set-a-piece. 

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Srikanth started brightly in the decider before fizzling away at the end to suffer a 21-12 loss, rounding off the clash in exactly an hour. 

Commonwealth Games gold medalist Kashyap suffered a humbling defeat in straight sets to Momota. Kashyap comprehensively lost the first set 21-13 but gave a tough fight to the 26-year-old Japanese in the second set, which he ended up losing 21-20. 

In other results, Malaysian pair of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi ended the campaign of Indian men’s combo of MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila with a 21-13 21-12 win, while the women’s duo of Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram also bowed out after losing 10-21 15-21 to Denmark’s Alexandra Boje and Mette Poulsen.