Korea Open Superseries - Sindhu, Jayaram advance; Srikanth disappoints

Ajay Jayaram pulled off an impressive win over Viktor Axelson

The second day of the Korea Open Superseries turned out to be an eventful one for the Indians as the expected winners were shown the exit doors whereas some of the lower ranked shuttlers upstaged the higher ones.

In men’s singles unseeded and World No. 31 Ajay Jayaram stunned the World No. 6 Danish ace Viktor Axelsen in two straight games whereas both the seeded Indians; Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth lost their respective opening round matches. H.S Prannoy also lost his match to Tien Chen Chou of Taipei.

In Women’s Singles P.V Sindhu, who is the lone Indian representative in this category got the better of World No. 5 Thai player Ratchanok Intanon.

Women’s doubles pair of N.Siki Reddy and Pradnya Gadre also lost their first round match in two straight games.

Two-time World Championships bronze medalists and World No. 14 P.V Sindhu defeated Intanon 21-19, 21-23, 21-13 in a nail-biting encounter which lasted for an hour and nine minutes. The 20-year old Hyderabadi, who had spent most of the time this year dealing with an injury and struggling for form, today showed a mark of excellence in getting past the former World Champion.

The opening game began on an even note as both the shuttlers were fighting hard for each and every point. There was hardly any difference separating the two till the mid-game interval. From 18-all, Sindhu grabbed the next two points to get herself two game points. 20-year old Thai managed to save the first point but was unable to save the next one as she lobbed the shuttle wide.

Intanon, however, came back strongly in the next game as she started to dominate the net play and eventually took a healthy lead of four points at the mid-game break. But Sindhu fought back very well to first level the scores to 15-15 and then took the lead by rolling five straight points.

With five match points in hand, it looked like that the Indian star will easily sail her boat through to the winning shore, but it was at this point that the young Thai brought all her experience into play as she saved all the match points to back level the scores to 20-a piece .From 21-all, Ratchanok reeled off next two points in quick succession to take the match to a decider.

All the efforts made by the former World Junior Champion, Thai shuttler went in vein as she failed to repeat her performance in the final game and succumbed meekly before the Indian ace. This is Sindhu’s first win against Ratchanok in four meetings. She will now take on the World No.16 Japanese player Sayaka Takahashi for a place in last eight.

In Men’s Singles, World No. 4 Kidambi Srikanth and World No. 8 Parupalli Kashyap went down to Chinese and Hong Kong shuttlers respectively.

Srikanth continued his miserable 2015 as he lost to World ranked 11 Tian Houwei 12-21, 21-13, 21-17 in a match which ended in 58 minutes. After winning the India Open title in March, 24-year old Indian has played in nine tournaments including Korea Open but he has failed to enter the last four in any of them.

Out of those nine tournaments, he lost in the second round in six, first round in two and quarters in one. It’s high time that the reigning China Open Superseries winner peak his game if he wants to make the cut in next year’s Rio Olympics.

Ranked 8th in the World, Parupalli Kashyap lost to World No. 18 Wei Nan 21-17, 16-21, 18-21 in a thrilling encounter. 28-year old Indian, who made it to the quarterfinals in the recently concluded Japan Open lost the game but made a tremendous comeback in the second as he didn’t gave his opponent a single chance to come close.

The third game saw the lower ranked Hong Kong player opening up to a 9-4 lead and then increasing it up to 13-7. Even though Kashyap tried to reduce the lead in the second half of the decider but his efforts were not enough as Nan hurled off to victory in 59 mintes.

12th ranked Prannoy also gave a tough fight to 7th ranked Taipei player Tien Chen Chou. Indian won the opening game by 21-18 but the higher ranked Taipei ace grabbed the next two games by a score of 19-21 and 17-21 to draw the curtains on the challenge of Indian shuttler. This is Chen’s second consecutive victory over Prannoy.

The only good news in this section came from Ajay Jayaram. This 27-year old Chennai-born player stunned the World No. 6 and Japan Open Superseries finalist Viktor Axelsen 21-15, 21-15 without dropping a sweat. He now plays Wong wing ki Vincent of Hong Kong in the second round.

In Women’s Doubles, Pradnya Gadre and N.Siki Reddy lost to the experienced Japanese pair of Mami Naito and Shizuka Matsuo 26-24, 21-9 in the opener.