Hong Kong Open: HS Prannoy, PV Sindhu kick off campaign with contrasting wins
Kowloon: Rio Olympic silver-medallist PV Sindhu showcased a brilliant performance as she kicked off her campaign at the Hong Kong Super Series with a comfortable straight game victory over Leung Yuet Yee in the women's singles event here on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old Hyderabadi shuttler, who made a quarter-final finish in the recently-concluded China Open Super Series last week, eased past her Hong Kong opponent Yuet Yee 21-18, 21-10 in a one-sided clash that lasted just 26 minutes.
Sindhu will now cross swords with either Aya Ohori of Japan or Russia's Evgeniya Kosetskaya.
Meanwhile, HS Prannoy also made it to the second round after surviving a scare against Hu Yun of Hong Kong in the opening round of the men's singles event.
Prannoy produced a brilliant comeback from a game down to thrash Hu Yun 19-21, 21-17, 21-15 in an exhilarating opening-round encounter that lasted more than an hour.
The 25-year-old, who defeated his countryman Kidambi Srikanth to win 2017 Senior National Badminton Championship last week, will face Japan's Kazumasa Sakai, who had defeated the Indian in the semifinals of Indonesia Open Super Series Premier.
In the women's doubles event, the Indian team of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy suffered a major blow as they bowed out of the tournament after going down against the Chinese combo of Huang Dongping and Li Wenmei 11-21 21-19 19 -21 in a hard-fought contest.
Earlier in the day, ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal advanced to the second round of the tournament after registering a 21-19, 23-21 win over Mette Poulsen of Denmark in a 46-minute first round clash.
Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap, on the other hand, squandered an opening game advantage and went down 21-15, 9-21, 20-22 to Lee Dong Keun of Korea to crash out of the tournament.
