Following in the footsteps of the World No. 2 shuttler PV Sindhu, the former India No. 1 men's singles ace Srikanth Kidambi made a bright start to his campaign at the $350,000 OUE Singapore Open Superseries and advanced to the second round on Wednesday. The World No. 28 was in impeccable form and needed just 32 minutes to beat the 74th ranked Kenta Nishimoto of Japan, 21-12, 21-11 in his opening round.
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Srikanth broke away from a tie in the early stages of the first game to build a 7-4 lead before pocketing the first game, 21-12. In the second game, he was in control of the proceedings right from the start and raced ahead to take a 6-0 advantage which took the match away from the Japanese.
The former World No. 3 is trying to make his way back to the top echelons of the game after losing three months last year due to a stress fracture on his right ankle. As a result, his ranking was severely affected and he slid down to below 30 before climbing back into the top 30 last week.
Tough win for PV Sindhu
Earlier, the India No. 1 PV Sindhu had a much tougher first round as she had to come back from a first-game deficit to notch up a hard-fought 10-21, 21-15, 22-20 win over the former All England Championships winner Nozomi Okuhara. The Japanese, who reached the Malaysia Open semi-finals last week, saved four match points in the decider and made it 20-20 before the Pullela Gopichand protege finally managed to eke out the victory in 1 hour 2 minutes.
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Sai Praneeth was the other Indian singles winner of the day. Sai needed 1 hour 4 minutes to beat the 40th ranked Emil Holst, 17-21, 21-7, 21-19.
The current India No. 1 men’s singles player, Ajay Jayaram, however, did not enjoy the same fortunes as he crashed out with a 16-21, 7-21 loss to the fifth seed Shi Yuqi of China. Jayaram was the only Indian to make it through to the quarter-finals of the Malaysia Open last week after upsetting the World No. 2 and India Open champion, Viktor Axelsen in three gruelling games.
Big win for Ponnappa-Reddy in women’s doubles
Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy were the only doubles winners of the day from India. The World No. 41 pair toppled the 23rd ranked Malaysians Yin Loo Lim and Yap Cheng We, 21-19, 21-19 in a gritty opener that lasted 42 minutes.
