Singapore Open badminton: India’s PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy make quarter-finals
PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy both won their respective second round singles matches in the BWF Super 500 event. Saina Nehwal also progressed.
Indian badminton players PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy advanced to the quarter-finals of the Singapore Open 2022 after hard-fought wins in their round 2 matches on Thursday.
PV Sindhu, seventh in the badminton world rankings, came from a game down in her women’s singles match to defeat world No. 59 Thuy Linh Nguyen of Vietnam 19-21, 21-19, 21-18 in one hour and six minutes.
PV Sindhu was caught off-guard by her lower-ranked opponent in the first game and was in a spot of bother, trailing 19-17 in the second game. The two-time Olympic medallist, however, rallied to score four consecutive points and took the match into the decider.
Riding the momentum, PV Sindhu surged to a 9-3 lead in the third game. However, Thuy Linh Nguyen cut it to 11-10 heading into the break.
Both players contested fiercely for the remainder of the match and eventually, it was the experienced PV Sindhu who progressed to the quarter-finals of the BWF Super 500 badminton tournament.
In the men’s singles, India’s Thomas Cup hero HS Prannoy, ranked 19th, also scripted a comeback to upset world No. 4 Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-14, 20-22, 21-18 in one hour and nine minutes.
The Indian shuttler went down in the first game but overcame a four-point deficit in the second to keep his quarter-final chances alive.
Trailing 11-6 at the break in the third game, HS Prannoy chipped away eight of the next 11 points to level the score at 14-all. The Indian shuttler kicked off from there on to storm into his fourth successive quarter-finals.
India’s Mithun Manjunath, who beat world championships silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth on Wednesday, went down to Ireland’s world No. 42 Nhat Nguyen 21-10, 21-18, 21-16.
London 2012 bronze medallist Saina Nehwal, meanwhile, upset world No. 9 He Bing Jiao of China 21-19, 11-21, 21-17 to make her first quarter-final of the year. The last time she progressed beyond the round of 16 was at the Orleans Masters back in March 2021.
Ashmita Chaliha, meanwhile, bowed out after a 21-9, 21-13 loss to Chinese shuttler Han Yue.
In men's doubles, India's MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila also made the final eight after beating Malaysian sixth seeds Nur Izzuddin and Goh Sze Fei 18-21, 24-22, 21-18 in a marathon match.
The other two Indian pairs in action on Thursday, Nithin HV and S Ram Poorvisha in mixed doubles and Pooja Dandu and Arathi Sara Sunil in women's doubles, however, bowed out.