Sindhu reaches quarterfinals, Nehwal off to winning start

World No 9 PV Sindhu reached the quarterfinals while Saina Nehwal won her opening round match in women’s singles at the USD 125,000 Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold. Sindhu fought hard for 54 minutes to beat World No 23 Michelle Li of Canada in three hard-fought games. The final score was 19-21, 21-16, 21-11 in favour of the lanky Indian girl. She will face world No 3 Wang Shixian of China in the last eight clash.

Meanwhile, Saina opened her campaign with a straight game win over qualifier Chisato Hoshi of Japan. The sixth seeded Indian beat her Japanese opponent 21-12 21-12 in 34 minutes to progress to the second round. Saina, who will be pitted against Sashina Vigneswaran in the pre-quarter-finals today dropped a place world rankings to No 8 due to her loss in the All England.

World number 36 Anand Pawar squandered a first game advantage to suffer a 21-14 12-21 12-21 defeat against Chinese Taipei’s Tien Chen Chou in a 51-minute men’s singles match. This was Anand’s third defeat to Chou. He had lost to the Taiwanese shuttler in German Open this year.

Pawar had fended off the challenge from another German Tobias Wadenka 21-11 21-4 in the first round. Top Indian male shuttler Parupalli Kashyap eased into the second round too, taking 33 minutes to dispose Lukas Schmidt of Germany 21-15 21-14.