Fuzhou: It was a contrasting day for India’s top badminton players as Saina Nehwal won to advance to the women’s singles quarter finals, Sindhu suffered a second round loss at the $700,000 (Dh2.57 million) China Open Superseries Premier here on Thursday.
Top seed and defending champion Saina was given a tough fight by Malaysian Tee Jing Yi but the defending champion came out winning 21-10, 19-21, 21-19 in 55 minutes at the Haixia Olympic Sports Center.
However, it was the end of the road for double World Championship bronze medallist Sindhu who lost a marathon one hour and 28 minute battle to Chinese fifth seed Shixian Wang. The Chinese eventually prevailed 18-21, 21-18, 21-16.
Reigning Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap, meanwhile, dropped a spot to be ranked No. 13 in the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) men’s singles rankings released on Thursday.
Kashyap was overtaken by South Korean Son Wan Ho, who jumped two places to be at No. 11. The 29-year-old Indian hasn’t had a great run of late, exiting tournaments in early rounds.
Meanwhile, Kidambi Srikanth, H.S. Prannoy and Ajay Jayaram maintained their rankings at No. 5, 21 and 25 respectively. In women’s singles, Indian ace Saina Nehwal remained at No.2 while rival and city-mate P.V. Sindhu also did not move from No. 13.
Manu Attri and B. Sumeeth Reddy also remained at No.20 of men’s doubles while Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa remained at No. 11 of women’s doubles.
There is no Indian representation in the top-25 of mixed doubles.
