Singapore, Apr 11 : Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu and sixth seed Saina Nehwal progressed into women’s singles quarterfinals of the USD 355,000 Singapore Open here on Thursday.
Fourth seeded Sindhu took 39 minutes to defeat world number 22 Mia Blichfeldt 21-13 21-19. This was her second straight win over the Danish girl, who had clinched the Spain Masters this year.
World number 6 Sindhu will face China’s Cai Yanyan in next game, a BWF World Junior Championships bronze medallist.
While, Nehwal ranked no 9 in BWF charts took 67 minutes to beat unseeded Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand 21-16, 18-21, 21-19 in the second round.
Saina will next face second seed and former world champion Nozomi Okuhara in Friday’s quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, Parupalli Kashyap failed to deal with reigning Olympic champion Chen Long. Kashyap battled hard to force a decider after meekly surrendering the first game 9-21 to Chen.
However, the Chinese shuttler managed to close out the deciding game 21-16 and progress to the quarter-final.
Meanwhile, unseeded Sameer Verma went past China’s Lu Guangzu 21-15, 21-18 to book a place in the quarter-final. He will now face the winner of Thursday’s Round of 16 match between Jan O Jorgensen and second seed Chou Tien Chen on Friday.
Later in the day, sixth seed Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy will be in action in the men’s singles second round. While Prannoy faces world number one Kento Momota, Srikanth takes on Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Vittinghus for a spot in the quarter-final.
