Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu surge ahead in Badminton Asia Championship

New Delhi: World No.1 Saina Nehwal began her campaign with a hard-fought win, while P.V. Sindhu continued her rampaging run but it was curtains for top men’s shuttler Parupalli Kashyap at the $200,000 Badminton Asia Championship at Wuhan, China, on Thursday.Olympic bronze-medallist Saina, who got a bye and a walkover in the first two rounds, got off the blocks with a 21-14, 10-21, 21-10 win over Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara in a match that lasted an hour and seven minutes.

The Indian will next take on fifth seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei.Eighth seed Sindhu, a two-time bronze winner at the World Championships, set up a clash with top seed Li Xuerui of China in the quarter-finals after brushing aside Macau’s U. Teng Iok 21-8, 21-9 at the Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium.However, Kashyap, who had defeated Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Jen Hao a day before, could not continue his winning run as his gallant fight ended with a 23-21, 17-21, 8-21 loss to seventh seed Wang Zhengming of China. Among other Indians, the men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy B. sank 10-21, 13-21 against third seeds Xiaolong Liu and Zihan Qiu of China.

The mixed doubles pair of Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan went down 13-21, 5-21 to Kai Lu and Yaqiong Huang of China.An all-England finalist, Saina fought back from deficits of 3-5 and 4-6 in the first and third games respectively, to hand Nozomi her third defeat in as many encounters.The Hyderabad girl lagged initially but soon opened up a 9-5 lead and even though Nozomi clawed back with a four-point burst, Saina was able to keep her nose ahead to grab the opening game. Nozomi changed her tactics in the second game and surged to a 5-0 lead and then kept distancing herself from the Indian to roar back into the contest. In the decider, Saina after trailing 3-5, reeled off nine straight points to leave the Japanese stranded.