PTI
Rio de Janeiro, August 11: London Games bronze winner Saina Nehwal and two-time World Championship bronze medallist, P V Sindhu made resounding starts to their campaign at the Rio Olympics but it turned out to be a dismal day for the Indian doubles players, here Thursday.
Former World No. 1 Saina staved off a spirited challenge from World No. 73 Brazilian girl Vicente Lohaynny 21-17, 21-17 in a women’s singles match. She took 20 minutes to pocket the opening game before sealing the issue by wrapping up the second game in 19 minutes.
Ninth seed Sindhu spanked Laura Sarosi of Hungary in the women’s singles competition 21-8, 21-9 in a Group M match that lasted for 27 minutes. She will play against Li Michelle of Canada, August 14 to complete the preliminary group engagements. Sindhu didn’t break any sweat against her World No. 64 rival as she took 13 and 14 minutes to wrap up the first and second games.
The Indian doubles combinations in both women’s and men’s segments suffered tame defeats in their Rio Olympics badminton campaign which started here Thursday.
The women’s duo of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa lost in straight games to the World No.1 Japanese combo of Ayaka Takahashi and Misaki Matsumoto 15-21, 10-21 in a Group A match which lasted 36 minutes.
The Indians will next be up against the World No.11 Dutch pair of Eefje Muskens and Selena Piek in their second group clash Friday. A victory would only guarantee their place in the pre-quarterfinals.
Jwala and Ashwini opened a 4-1 in the first game lead but ended up blowing it away in no time after the Japanese pair put across some deep returns which the Indians failed to judge. The Indians soon fell behind 8-11 at the first break and after that were never in the lead.
The Japanese pair produced a couple of brilliant winners – a backhand flick down the line by Matsumoto being particularly impressive – two wrap up the opening game in 19 minutes. The second game followed a similar script with Takahashi and Matsumoto racing to a 6-3 lead and then closed out the match quite easily.
In men’s doubles, Manu Attri and B Sumith Reddy lost 18-21, 13-21 to World No.2 Indonesian duo of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan.