Korea Open: PV Sindhu marches into R2, Kidambi Srikanth ousts Daren Liew

Suncheon: The third-seed PV Sindhu on Wednesday stormed into the second round of the Korea Open Badminton Championships 2022 after defeating USA's Lauren Lam here at the Palma Stadium. The two-time Olympic medallist Indian defeated Lauren Lam 21-15, 21-14 in a match that lasted 34 minutes.

Sindhu raced toward an 11-6 lead into the first break of the match. The Indian had a slight wobble after the restart, allowing Lam to cut the deficit down to 16-13 but a great recovery from the 2017 Korea Open champion saw her finishing strongly to go a game up. The American offered no easy points to Sindhu in Game 2 as the Indian world No. 7 was leading by just a point at the mid-game break. With the game balanced on a knife's edge at 15-14, PV Sindhu shifted gears and he took six points on the trot to mark a sudden end to the affair.

The Indian, who is off to round 2 of the BWF Super 500 event, will now meet Japan's Aya Ohori. Later, former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth defeated Malaysian shuttler, Daren Liew by 22-20, 21-11 in a match that lasted for 40 minutes. Once trailing 15-18, Srikanth managed to mount a comeback and win the first game 22-20.

The fifth seed then had little trouble dispatching Daren Liew in the second. The Indian shuttler will now face Israel's Misha Zilberman in the second round. Earlier, Indian men's doubles pair M.R. Arjun/Dhruv Kapila received a walkover in the first round of the men's doubles event after South Korea's Ba Da Kim/ Hee Young Park pulled out.

The Indian duo now may come up against Indonesian second seeds Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan, former world champions in round 2.