Indian shuttler and two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu advanced to the pre-quarterfinal round of the Malaysia Masters badminton tournament on Wednesday.
In her round of 32 match, she registered an easy win over Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland by 21-17, 21-16 in two straight games.
In the other mixed doubles round of 32 match, the Indian pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and N. Sikki Reddy also moved to the pre-quarterfinals following 21-15, 12-21, 21-17 win over Lui Chun Wai and FU Chi Yan of Hong Kong.
In their round of 32 encounter, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran and Aadya Variyath, another Indian couple, were defeated 16-21, 13-21 by Dejan Ferdinansyah and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.
Kiran George, Aakarshi Kashyap, Ashmita Chaliha, and Unnati Hooda are some of the players that will be representing India later today.
Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur is hosting the Malaysia Masters from May 21 to May 26. It’s a Super 500 level Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour competition. Women’s singles champion PV Sindhu won the title twice in the competition, in 2013 and 2016, while Saina Nehwal won it in 2017.
In the previous year’s final, HS Prannoy defeated Weng Hongyang of China by scores of 21-19, 13-21, and 21-18 to win the title as well.
Thailand Open was won by Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty last week.
They added another trophy to their trophy cabinet by easily defeating Liu Yi and Chen Bo Yang of China in straight sets. They won their first Thailand Open championship back in 2019, therefore they currently hold two titles. ‘Sat-Chi’ moved up two spots to take back the top spot with 99,670 points in the most recent BWF rankings, which were released on Tuesday.
They won the French Open in March, therefore this is their second championship of the year.