Nagoya, Sep 26 (PTI) Veteran PV Sindhu and young Unnati Hooda produced clutch performances to storm into the women’s singles quarterfinals, while Lakshya Sen and Ayush Shetty were knocked out of the Asian Games here on Saturday.
In a late evening third round encounter, Sindhu outclassed Tomoka Miyazaki 21-9 21-13 in straight games to enter the quarterfinals.
In women’s singles, Unnati, a winner of three BWF Super 100 titles, defeated Malaysia’s Ling Ching Wong 21-14 20-22 21-19 to progress to the third round. The 19-year-old from Haryana then recorded a stunning 21-19 21-13 win over world No. 6 Indonesian Putri Kusuma Wardani to set up a quarterfinal clash with Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi.
Women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, who won their maiden World Championships bronze medal in New Delhi last month, notched up a second successive win in a week over world no. 3 Mayu Matsumoto and Yuki Fukushima of Japan, registering a 24-22 21-18 victory to advance to the quarterfinals.
The Indian pair had defeated the same opponents in the women’s team quarterfinal against Japan a few days back.
Treesa and Gayatri will face Malaysia’s Tan Pearly and Thinaah Muralitharan next.
Two-time Olympic medallist indhu, who won her maiden Super 750 title in Japan a few months back, also saw off Chinese Taipei’s world No. 17 Chiu Pin-chian 21-19 21-14 in the women’s singles second round.
Ayush, a finalist at the Badminton Asia Championships, brushed aside Kazakhstan’s Makhsut Tajibullayev 21-7 21-7 in the second round, but his gallant fight ended with a 16-21 21-19 17-21 loss to Chinese Taipei’s 36-year-old Chou Tien Chen in the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals.
Earlier in the day, Lakshya lost to former world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in three games.
The World No. 14 Sen went down 12-21 21-15 14-21 to the 2021 world champion, ranked 13th, in a battle lasting more than an hour.
The defeat came just a day after the shock exit of former world No. 1 pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty from the men’s doubles, dealing another blow to India’s badminton campaign.
An individual medal at the Asian Games thus continued to elude Lakshya, who had won the Commonwealth Games gold in 2022 and went on to finish fourth at the Paris Olympics.
Lakshya, who has a team silver from last edition at Hangzhou, won a bronze in the team event on Wednesday.
Unnati vs Putri
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World No. 24 Unnati, who had lost to her rival at the Hylo Open last year, opened up a 10-6 lead quickly before taking a two-point advantage at the break. Putri caught up at 15-15 and also took a slender 17-15 lead at one stage, but Unnati fought her way back to grab three game points. She squandered two of them before converting the third.
In the second game, Unnati was 6-2 up, but Putri clawed back to 8-8. The Indian again regrouped to surge to 12-9. Putri narrowed the lead to 11-12, but the Indian slowly pulled away to shut the door on her fancied rival.
Sindhu vs Chui
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Sindhu took time to get into the groove as it was her opponent Chui who kept things in control to move from 6-2 to manage a 11-10 lead at the break.
The Indian slowly made her way to 19-16 after some close fight. A backhand net shot error brought up three game points for Sindhu. A lucky net chord followed by a fine construction of rally helped Chui to save two before the Indian converted with a deep cross court push.
In the second game, Sindhu looked more in command as she opened up a 8-4 cushion early and then entered the break 11-8. Sindhu moves to 15-10 with Chui going long. The Indian eventually grabbed six match points and converted soon after. PTI ATK TAP KHS SSC
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