TIL Desk Sports/ Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu made positive starts to the new season, reaching the second round of the $350,000 Indonesia Masters with contrasting victories in the women’s singles, in Jakarta, on Wednesday. London Olympics bronze medallist Saina, returning from an ankle injury, had to dig deep to eke out a 22-24, 21-15, 21-14 win over China’s world No 7 Chen Yufei in 69 minutes.
Sindhu, though, hardly broke a sweat as she dumped local hope Hanna Raramdini 21-13, 21-10. Saina will face China’s Chen Xiaoxin, while Sindhu takes on Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in the next round on Thursday. Saina fought back from 4-9 down to draw abreast at 16 before leading 20-17, but Chen erased the deficit to grab the opening game.The Indian led 7-4 and 11-10 at the break before easily winning the second game.
In the decider, Saina and Chen fought hard before the former broke away at 12-12 to take the match. The Indian young men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also crossed the opening hurdle after dispatching the eighth seeded Japanese pair of Takuto Inque and Yuki Kaneko 21-15, 21-17 to set up a clash with Chinese Taipei’s Liao Min Chun and Su Ching Heng in the second round.
Earlier, Sameer Verma, who recently recovered from a shoulder injury, suffered a 16-21, 21-12, 10-21 loss to Japan’s Kazumasa Sakai in a men’s singles match. The men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy lost 18-21, 21-16, 16-21 to Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han.
