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Sports News
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| Sindhu, Srikanth advances to pre-quarterfinals of World Badminton Championships | | | |  china 01 August(Agencies)
PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth notched up contrasting wins to progress to the pre-quarterfinals but the world No. 11 HS Prannoy suffered a shock defeat to Brazilian Ygor Coelho to bow out of the World Badminton Championship in Nanjing, China today.
Saina Nehwal has already entered the pre-quarterfinals defeating Turkey's Aliye Demirbag yesterday.
Olympic silver medallist Sindhu, who had got a bye in the first round, opened her campaign with an easy 21-14, 21-9 win over Indonesia's Fitriani. The 23-year-old Indian, who won the silver medal last year, will face Korean Sung Ji Hyun, a 2015 World Championship bronze medallist, in the next round.
Srikanth, seeded fifth, recovered from a slump during the hard-fought contest to see off Spain's Pablo Abian 21-15, 12-21, 21-14 in a second-round match that lasted 62 minutes. Srikanth, who had clinched four titles last year, will lock horns with Malaysia's Daren Liew, a former world No. 10, who had won the 2012 French Open Super Series.
B Sai Praneeth also entered the next round after defeating Spain's Luís Enrique Penalver 21-18, 21-11 to set up a meeting with Denmark's Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus.
However, Prannoy and Sameer Verma bowed out of the tournament. Prannoy, seeded 11th, could not hold on to the momentum after breezing through the opening game to eventually lose 21-8, 16-21, 15-21 to Coelho, ranked 39th in the world. Later, Sameer failed to get across former two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan, losing 17-21, 14-21 in a 45-minute match.
It also turned out to be a disastrous day for the Indian doubles pairs as all of them lost their respective matches to crash out of the prestigious tournament. Commonwealth Games silver medallists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty did all the hard work but could not go the full distance, losing narrowly 18-21, 21-15, 16-21 to world No. 8 Denmark pair of Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in men's doubles.
Ashwini Ponnapa and N Sikki Reddy were no match for second-seeded Japanese combination of Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota, going down 14-21, 15-21 in the second round women's doubles event.
National champions Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy waged a gallant battle before losing 24-22, 13-21, 16-21 to seventh seed Takuto Inoue and Yuki Kaneko of Japan in men's doubles.
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