Sindhu, Srikanth sail into quarters

World No.7 Sindhu defeated Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand, ranked three places below her, 21-14, 21-18 in the women’s singles pre-quarterfinal contest that lasted 48 minutes. Sindhu avenged her twin losses to Chochuwong this season, having gone down in a group match at the BWF World Tour Finals and the All England Championships.

In the last-eight phase, double Olympic medallist Sindhu will face top seed and World No.1 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei, who beat Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland 21-10, 19-21, 21-11. In the men’s singles category, 12th seed Srikanth outplayed the unseeded Guang Zu Lu of China 21-10, 21-15 to enter the Round-of-8.

Indians, however, suffered defeats in both the women’s and men’s doubles pre-quarterfinals. The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost 13-21, 15-21 to the Thai duo of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai.

The men’s doubles combination of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a tough 20-22, 21-18, 15-21 defeat to Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi of Malaysia.