ODENSE (TIP): On a fruitful day for the Indian shuttlers, Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu stormed into the women’s singles quarterfinals while two men’s players also secured places in the last-eight stage of the Denmark Open Super Series Badminton event, here on October 16. London Olympics bronze medallist Saina made short work of Minatsu Mitani 21-12 21-10 in her second round contest, which lasted just 38 minutes.
Before Saina’s win, two-time World Championships bronze medallist Sindhu took just 31 minutes to get the better of Ksenia Polikarpova of Russia 21-17 21-19 at the Odense Sports Park. Since the top two women shuttlers from India are in either half of the draw, they could clash for the title if they win two more matches.
In the men’s singles, Srikanth defeated Chinese Taipei’s Jen Hao Hsu 21-12 21-15 in 45 minutes while Kashyap fought hard before prevailing over Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka of Indonesia 21-17 17-21 22-20 in a contest that lasted 69 minutes. World No. 10 Sindhu opened up a 4-0 lead in the first game and continued to widen the gap, eventually winning it 20-17. In the second game, Sindhu quickly broke away from a 2-2 tie to take a slight edge and then she kept on extending it to make it 19-15 at one stage. But a brief fight back from the Russian saw her closing the gap to 19-20 before Sindhu used all her experience to wrap it up in her favour.
In men’s singles second round matches, Srikanth had a rather comfortable outing today, but Glasgow Commonwealth Games gold medallist Kashyap faced a stiff challenge from his Indonesian rival. After a neck and neck battle till 13-13 in the opening game, Kashyap bagged four consecutive points to make it 17-13 and then there was no looking back for the Indian. But the Indonesian shuttler came back strongly in the second game as he opened up a huge 7-1 lead.
Although Kashyap managed to reel off six points on a trot to catch his opponent, the Indonesian showed a lot of determination to keep the Indian at bay and take the match to the decider. Third game was a closely-fought affair with both players refusing to spare an inch. The game swung from one end to other before the Indian held his nerves to earn two points from 20-20 to advance to the next stage.
4 Indian shuttlers, including Saina, advance in Denmark Open
