Birmingham: PV Sindhu went through to the second round of the All England Open Championship with a 21-11, 21-17 win over Malaysia’s Soniia Cheah. Meanwhile, Saina Nehwal retired during her first-round match against Mia Blichfeldt when she was trailing 21-8, 10-4.
Meanwhile, Kidambi Srikanth lost to Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen 21-11, 15-21, 21-12 in the first round.
HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, Sameer Verma and world championship bronze medallist B Sai Praneeth progressed to the second round in men’s singles. Prannoy swept aside Malaysian Daren Lew 21-10, 21-10 but now faces the uphill task of playing Japanese world No.1 Kenton Momota in the second round on Thursday.
Lakshya Sen, meanwhile, beat Thailand’s Kantaphon Wangcharoen 21-18, 21-12 while Praneeth beat France’s Toma Popov 21-18, 22-20. Verma beat Brazil’s Ygor Coelho 21-11, 21-19.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty swept aside took just 19 minutes to beat the Indo-English pair of Nikhar Garg and Aniruddha Mayekar 21-7, 21-10 in men’s doubles.
