TIL Desk Sports/ After sailing into the season-opening Malaysia Masters women’s singles pre-quarters, London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal on Wednesday turned coach for her shuttler husband Parupalli Kashyap, who also advanced to the next round along with Kidambi Srikanth in the men’s singles categories.
Also advancing to the next round of the World Tour Super 500 tournament is the women’s doubles duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and N.Sikki Reddy. Sikki, however, failed to proceed in the mixed doubles category with her partner Pranaav Jerry Chopra, as the Indian duo went down 19-21, 17-21 to The Netherlands’ pair of Robin Tabeling and Selena Piek.
In the women’s singles first round encounter that lasted one hour and five minutes, Saina, the No.7 seed came back from a game down to eventually beat unseeded Deng Joy Xuan of Hong Kong 14-21, 21-18, 21-18. Saina, the only Indian in women’s singles event, will next play another unseeded Hong Kong shuttler Pui Yin Yip. The 2018 Asian Games gold medallist then returned to coach her husband Kashyap, who also bounced back from a game down to eventually tame Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke 19-21, 21-19, 21-10.
