Kuala Lumpur, June 27 (UNI) Olympic silver-medallis PV Sindhu and World No 7 Kidambi Srikanth advanced to the pre-quarterfinals, while Singapore Open champion B Sai Praneeth was crashed out after first round in the Malaysian Open here on Wednesday.
Sindhu registered her win over Japan's Aya Ohori in the women's singles by 26-24, 21-15 in the opening round match, whereas in the men’s singles, Srikanth beat former World No 2 Jan Jorgensen of Denmark 21-18 21-9 in the match.
Srikanth took the led 5-0 and then 13-8 at one stage and in the second game Srikanth and Jorgensen fought tight to move to 5-5, as the 25-year old Indian shuttler made a grab of 11-6 lead to seal the tourney.
The World No 7 guntur, who claimed four titles last season, will next face Chinese Taipei’s Wang Tzu Wei, who thrashed Praneeth 21-12, 21-7, in the other opening round game.
Sindhu's slender 8-6 lead gained momentum, when Ohori had a 12-10 and 15-13 advantage at stage one but the Olympic silver-medallist managed to break free at 14-14 to easily post the win.
The third-seeded Indian will face the winner of the match between Malaysia's Ying Ying Lee and Chinese Taipei's Chiang Ying Li next.
On the other hand, in men’s doubles, Commonwealth Games silver medallists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were crashed out after they had lost 16-21, 15-21 to seventh seeded Japanese combo of Takuto Inoue and Yuki Kaneko.
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