French Open Badminton: PV Sindhu cruises into Round 2 

PV Sindhu cruised to an easy 21-17, 21-8 win over Beiwen Zhang in the first round of Super 750 level tournament, the French Open, played in Paris on Tuesday. It was a dominating performance by Sindhu, who took her revenge from the first round loss at the Denmark Open last week.

In the first game, both players took alternate points till 4-4. After that, PV Sindhu showed her aggressive badminton and led 10-6. Zhang took 4 points in succession to level the scores at 10-10. At the interval, Zhang had a 11-10 slender lead.

After the interval, it was a closely-fought game and both players levelled the scores at 15-15. PV Sindhu then played aggressive badminton to win the first game 21-17.

The second game also began the same way as in the first, with both players taking alternate points till 3-3. PV Sindhu played with great control and made life tough for Beiwen Zhang.

At the interval, Sindhu led 11-4. After the interval, Sindhu continued her aggressive stroke play and showed her class. The Indian won the second set 21-8 easily to move into the 2nd round of the tournament. It took PV Sindhu 34 minutes to finish the game.

Sindhu lost her last 3 matches to Beiwen Zhang of the United States of America. It will give confidence to Sindhu in the coming rounds to perform much better and go deep into the tournament. The 2-time World Championships silver medallist has been in superb form this year, reaching the finals of the Asian Games, the Commonwealth Games, the World Championships and the India Open, among others.

The men’s doubles pair of Arjun MR and Shlok Ramchandran lost to Chinese opponents, Li JH and Liu YC in straight games 14-21, 17-21.

Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth will play their first round matches on Wednesday.