Badminton Asia Championships: PV Sindhu sweats hard to beat Pai Yu Po, enters 2nd round

Top Indian shuttlerPV Sindhuwon her first round women's singles matchand moved to the second round at the 2022 Badminton Asia Championships but Lakshya Sen and B Sai Praneeth crashed out of the tournament after losing their respective matches, here on Wednesday.

Double Olympic medallist Sindhu was made to work hard by 39th ranked Pai Yu Po of Chinese Taipei in the opening round match that lasted one hour and 17 minutes. The Indian ace dropped the opening game and saved a match point in the second before taking the decider and winning the contest by 18-21, 27-25, 21-9 at the Muntinlupa Sports Complex.

World No 7 and former world champion Sindhu will now take on Singapore`s Yue Yann Jaslyn Hooi in the next round on Thursday.

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Meanwhile, Tokyo 2020 Olympian B Sai Praneeth also faced a first-round exit, following a 17-21, 13-21 loss to this year`s Swiss Open winner Jonatan Christie of Indonesia.

Another Indian shuttler Aakarshi Kashyap was knocked out from the women`s singles by reigning world champion Akane Yamaguchi. Aakarshi lost 15-21, 9-21.The women`s doubles pairs of Ashwini Bhat-Shikha Gautam and Simran Sanghi and Ritika Thaker were also ousted in their opening contests.

Later in the day, world championship silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth and youngster Malvika Bansod will take the court for their respective singles matches.