India Open 2018, First Round: PV Sindhu vs Natalia Koch Rohde, Live Match Updates

Next up is the India No. 1 men's singles shuttler, Kidambi Srikanth, who begins his 2018 season today.

Follow his match LIVE here:

That was a pretty comfortable outing for the India No. 1 shuttler. She joins Saina Nehwal in Round 2.

Sindhu is now on a six-match winning streak at this tournament.

And Sindhu wraps this up!

21-10, 21-13

Sindhu is into R2

Rohde saves one match point

Rodhe pulled back one point after a long rally, but Sindhu goes up to match points.

20-12

And Sindhu is up 19-11

2 points away from the finish line.

Sindhu inching towards the finish line.....very much in control of this match.

16-9

It's 15-8 to the defending champion

It's 12-7 to Sindhu after the break.

Sindhu goes into the mid-game interval with an 11-6 lead.

Rodhe pulled back one point but the Indian cruises to 10-5, anyway

And Sindhu has imposed her attacking game here to race away to 8-4

The Indian has a mini lead of one point currently.

4-3

SECOND GAME

Sindhu opens up a 3-1 lead

And Sindhu wastes no time in grabbing the opening game.

21-10

It's 19-10 to the Indian, who is pretty pumped up now

Sindhu stops her comeback and inches ahead to 17-10

Rohde is building a string of points here through aggressive smashes.

She trails 10-16

And it's 16-6 to the defending champion

No stopping Sindhu as she comfortably moves ahead.

14-5

Sindhu goes into the midgame interval with an 11-4 lead

It's a BIG 10-4 lead to the Indian

It's 8-3 to the India No. 1

And Sindhu is moving ahead fast now.

Sharp and aggressive as ever.

She leads 6-3

Sindhu pulled back a couple of points but Rohde still leads 3-2

Sindhu has a slow start and trails 0-2

Welcome to the blog.

After Saina's 21-15, 21-9 win, we now turn our attention to PV Sindhu's first round match.

Welcome to the Sportskeeda liveblog of the India Open 2018 first round match of PV Sindhu. The Indian, who is the defending champion of this tournament, is the top seed.

While Sindhu is ranked third in the world, her opponent Natalia Koch Rohde is placed at 43rd in the world. This is their very first meeting.

Rohde has four titles to her name, but all of them have been at the International level. The last one of her titles came in 2016.

Sindhu is thus indeed a tough challenge for the Dane. The Rio Olympic silver medallist would be itching to lay her hands on a trophy after a quarter-final exit from the Indonesia Masters last week.

And there is no better place to do that than the India Open, where she will have a lot of home support.

This should be one breezy opener for the lanky Indian and she is expected to win without much hassle.