Sindhu, Srikanth enter second round of German Open

Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and World Championships silver winner Kidambi Srikanth registered contrasting wins to advance to the second round of the $180,000 German Open Super 300 badminton tournament here on Tuesday.

Seventh seed Sindhu trounced Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-8 21-7 in a lop-sided contest after Srikanth, seeded 8th, saw off France’s world no 39 Brice Leverdez 21-10 13-21 21-7 in 48 minutes.

It was Sindhu’s 15th win over the world no. 11 Thai player, while Srikanth too extended his head-to-head count over Leverdez to 4-0 after this victory.

Sindhu, a 2019 world champion, will meet either Spain’s Beatriz Corrales or China’s Zhang Yi Man next, while world no. 11 Srikanth will take on China’s Lu Guang Zu.

Srikanth, who was forced out of the India Open Super 500 event in January after testing positive for COVID-19, has a 2-0 record against world no. 27 Chinese.

The Indian mixed doubles pair of Sai Pratheek K and N Sikki Reddy, however, endured a difficult time against top seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand, going down 19-21 8-21 in their opening match.

Sindhu was playing in a different gear against Busanan, who failed to pose any threat to the Indian during the 32-minute match.

It was a complete domination from the Indian as she moved to 11-4 in no time and soon earned the bragging rights. The second game was also not too different as from 7-5, Sindhu marched ahead and shut the door on her rival without much ado.

In the men’s singles match, Srikanth looked in good touch as he zoomed from 6-6 to 19-8 in a jiffy and pocketed the opening game comfortably.

Leverdez made a roaring comeback in the second game as he dominated the proceedings and led from the start to finish to make it 1-1.

In the decider, Srikanth found his rhythm back as he made his way to 11-5 at the break and kept his nose ahead to soon jump to 18-7 before sealing it comfortably in the end.