Huelva: Defending champion PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth stormed into the quarterfinals of the BWF World Championships with straight-game wins in their respective singles round of 16 matches here Thursday.
World number 7 Sindhu defeated Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand, ranked three places below her, 21-14 21-18 in the pre-quarterfinal match that lasted 48 minutes.
With the win, Sindhu, seeded sixth in the showpiece tournament, extended her head-to-head record against Chochuwong to 5-3.
Sindhu also avenged her twin loss to Chochuwong this season — group match of BWF World Tour Finals earlier this month and All England Championships in March.
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The double Olympic medallist Sindhu faces top seed and world number one Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei, who beat Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland 21-10 19-21 21-11, in the quarterfinals.
In the men’s singles, 12th seed Srikanth outplayed unseeded Guang Zu Lu of China 21-10, 21-15 to enter the last eight.
Indians, however, suffered defeats in both the women’s and men’s doubles in the pre-quarterfinals.
The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost 13-21 15-21 to the Thai duo of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai.
The men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a 20-22 21-18 15-21 defeat to Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi of Malaysia.
Sindhu took an early 5-1 lead but Chochuwong rallied to narrow the gap to 5-4 and then to 10-9. The Indian zoomed ahead from there on as she made it 15-10 and then 19-11 to pocket the first game.
The second game was a tighter affair though Sindhu began on the front foot with a 3-0 lead. Sindhu led 11-6 at the change of ends and the second half saw some long rallies with the Thai player winning a few of them.
Sindhu was leading 16-10 but Chochuwong made a comeback of sort as she reduced the gap to 18-15 and then to 19-18.
Sindhu won a crucial point after a long rally to make it 20-18 before winning the second game and the match.
Sindhu, who got a first round bye, had beaten Slovakia’s Martina Repiska 21-7 21-9 in the second round on Tuesday.
Lakshya Sen and H S Prannoy are scheduled to play their round of 16 matches later Thursday.
PTI
