Asian Badminton Championship 2022: PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth enter Round 2

Sindhu had to dig deep to get the better of Chinese Taipei’s Pai Yu Pa as the fourth seeded Indian came back from a game down to win 18-21, 27-25, 21-9 in a marathon women’s singles opening round match. 

Indian shuttler PV Sindhu; Credit: Twitter/@BAI_Media
By Sreejith C R | Apr 28, 2022 | 2 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

PV Sindhu had to dig deep on Wednesday as she needed three games, an hour and 17 minutes to win her opening round at the Asian Badminton Championship in Manila. Meanwhile other top Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth also made through to the second round of the competition. But it was curtailed for Lakshya Sen and Sai Praneeth on the same day. 

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Sindhu had to fight hard to get the better of Chinese Taipei’s Pai Yu Pa as the fourth seed Indian came back from a game down to win 18-21, 27-25, 21-9 in a marathon women’s singles opening round match. 

London Olympics bronze medalist Nehwal, who is on a comeback trail after recovering from injuries, secured a 21-15, 17-21, 21-13 win over Sim Yujin of South Korea.  While seventh seeded Indian shuttler Srikanth was the other big name to enter the second round with a straight-game win over Tze Yong Ng of Malaysia. Srikanth defeated his opponent 22-20, 21-15, to set up a clash with Chinese qualifier Weng Hong Yang in the second round. 

Youngster Malavika Bansod too squandered a game lead before going down 9-21, 21-17, 26-24 against Yeo Jia Min of Singapore in another hard-fought tie in the women’s singles first round. Akasrshi Kashyap lost 15-21, 9-21 to Japanese top seed Akane Yamaguchi. 

It turned out to be a disappointing outing for world championship medalist Lakshya Sen as he went down against unseeded Li Shi Feng of China. Both the women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Bhat K and Shikga Gautam, and Simran Singhi and Ritika Thaker also made opening round exits after losing in straight games.